The Libyan media has dramatically changed in recent years. This has been most prominently manifest in the introduction of new satellite television news services. This thesis was designed to investigate two elements – patterns of news media consumption and news credibility in Libya. It examined the patterns of major local and international TV news services operating across different media, broadcast and print, and associations between Libyan students’ consumption of different news media platforms. In this context, it investigated the news consumption habits of young people, with special attention paid to their consumption of pan-Arab news services broadcast via satellite television. It looked at the perception of gratifications students obtained from these news services. It also reported findings on students’ perceptions of the credibility of two local, Al Jamahiriya and Al Libiya TV, and two pan-Arab TV news services, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. In order to address the thesis research questions, a survey was administered to a sample of 400 undergraduate students at Al-Fateh University using a stratified random sampling approach, with the sampling strata set by demographic variables. The study found that the new TV news services played an important role in attracting young Libyans with information they desire. The spread of new news media sources (television, radio and print) in Libya has created a new type of customer that transcends national boundaries. Statistical analyses indicated that there are distinct news consumption demographic differences defined in part by news platform (TV versus radio versus print) and in part by the type of news provider (local versus non-local TV news services). The findings were discussed in relation to the growing impact of international satellite broadcast news services and the need for local TV news services to find methods of making themselves distinctive in a way that provides an alternative but still relevant and valued news sources. With regard to news credibility, in general Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya were given higher credibility scores than Al Jamahiriya and Al Libiya news services. Higher credibility ratings, however, were significantly correlated with an increased likelihood of reported watching of both local TV news services, but only one of the pan-Arab TV news services (Al Jazeera).

In the last twenty years, the way in which individuals consume news about politics has changed. As the internet becomes increasingly accessible, convenient, and inexpensive, more consumers than ever before choose to get their news online. As this migration continues, an understanding of online news consumption becomes increasingly important to the study of media systems. There are several ways in which the internet can be truly transformative - this thesis investigates some of these claims as they pertain to the comparative study of media systems. The primary dimension of analysis presented here investigates the internet's role in facilitating the homogenisation, or convergence of domestic media systems. Using a historical institutionalist approach, this thesis examines internet news in the United States and the United Kingdom, two cases at the centre of this debate. To adequately reflect the diversity present in online news consumption, this project uses a dataset comprised of news stories about two national election campaigns accessed via search engines, news aggregators, and social media. The analysis presented here demonstrates the complexity of the online news environment, highlighting key areas like source distribution and regional news content where path dependency has persisted despite the transition to online news, and those areas such as regional news sources where distinguishing between the two cases is more difficult. Where this is the case, the thesis explores alternative the explanations of Americanisation and technological determinism. Variance between Google, News360, and NewsWhip data collected for this thesis demonstrates how the way in which consumers get their news influences how converged or path dependent the media system appears.

With a general concern for the role played by media and communication in individuals’ mobility  in a world where national borders are dissolving and people’s lives are becoming increasingly mediated, this empirical study sought to investigate a group of transnational young professionals’ daily news consumption and their mobile life experiences by conducting face-to-face interviews with target individuals in both Thailand and Sweden, and combining the results with an analysis from a theoretical perspective enlightened by cosmopolitanism and cultural capital. The study identified a set of distinctive news consumption tastes and multiple mobilities possessed by the interviewees. It demonstrates that news consumption can: 1) directly affect the mobile young professionals’ corporeal mobility by providing information about potential movement opportunities; 2) increase their social mobility by enabling them to accumulate cultural capital; and 3) expand their imaginative mobility by increasing their visuality of the multiple communities to which they belong. Conversely, any change in their multiple mobilities is reflected in a corresponding change in their choices of news consumption.

Our study has explored how university students at the Technical University of Mombasa, TUM, in Kenya consume news. The aim of the research has been to get a snapshot picture of what the consumption look like in a time and context when the development of Internet Communication Technology, ICT, has increased rapidly in a short period of time. Our empiric data has been collected through three different methods. First we approached the area of the Technical University of Mombasa with an ethnographic method. Then we went on with an in-depth interview with one of our key informants before handing out a survey to collect quantitative data to analyse. Through theoretical framework rooted in the theories of Digital divide and New media we interpreted our data to be able to answer our research questions. The results show that the use of the smartphone is widely spread in order to consume news among students of TUM. Money is still a big obstacle for the majority of the students in our population in how they can access news through technical devices. The gap between those who can afford and those who fight with financial issues is still large. Our study confirms that the gap in the digital divide is still big but we could read signs telling us that the gap maybe is about to shrink.

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Contemporary media research highlights the importance of empirically analysing the relationships between media and age, changing user patterns over the life course, and generational experiences within media discourse beyond the widely hyped buzz terms such as the ‘digital natives’, ‘Google generation’, and other digitally and technologically capable generation groups. This doctoral thesis seeks to define the ‘repertoires’ of news media that different generations use to obtain topical information and create their ‘media space’. It contributes to the development of a framework within which to analyse generational features in news audiences by putting the main focus on the cultural view of generations. This perspective was first introduced by Karl Mannheim in 1928. Departing from his legacy, generations can be better conceived as social formations that are built on self-identification, rather than equally distributed cohorts. With the purpose of discussing the emergence of various ‘audiencing’ patterns from the perspectives of age, life course and generational identity, the thesis presents Estonia – a post-Soviet Baltic state – as an empirical example of a transforming society with a dynamic media landscape which is witnessing the expanding impact of new media and a shift to digitisation.The thesis is based on data from two nationally representative cross-section surveys on media use and media attitudes (conducted during the 2002-2012 period) and focus group discussions, that are used to map similarities and differences among five generation cohorts born between 1932 and 1997 with regard to the access and use of the established news media, thematic preferences and spatial orientations of media use, and discursive approach to news formats. The findings demonstrate remarkable differences between the cohorts, suggesting that they could be merged into three main groups that represent the prevailing types of relations with the news media. Yet, the study also reveals that attitudes and behaviour (including media behaviour), are not necessarily divided by year of birth, but are more and more dispersed along individualised interests and preferences. / Audiences in the Age of media Convergence: Media Generations in Estonia and Sweden

The study aims to contribute to the deeper understanding of young Facebook users’ news consumption routines within the platform and to find out how they experience the growing presence of news publishers there. The research is based on 10 semi­structured interviews with international students ­ Swedish Institute scholarship holders from seven different countries. The qualitative data is analysed with the help of the theoretical approach, based on the combination of two modern concepts, that consider user perspective on news consumption: the concept of “perceived worthwhileness” by Kim Christian Schroeder and “spatial turn” by Chris Peters. The research has shown that young users often use Facebook as their primary source of news and, therefore, adopt new routines on this social platform in terms of news consumption. Among them are scanning through personal news feeds, monitoring friends interests, using “likes” for information dissemination and self­expression, chain reading news and “playing” with algorithms. At the same time, the communicational component of Facebook is not ignored and the platform as a whole is experienced rather as a space than a specific medium. In general, young users experience news consumption on Facebook in a positive way and appreciate the opportunity to see their peers’ perspectives on particular issues, show their identity to significant others, be exposed to a diverse range of news without wasting time on searching and choosing, and keep track of their activities and interests. At the same time, the author identified a negative attitude towards the chaotic structure of news feeds and the complexity of the settings.

Collage students’ news consumption has been a very popular research topic in media in pastfew years. But students’ involvement in news dissemination remained unnoticed andunexplored, especially in relation to democratic engagement. This study provides an overviewin this respect along with news consumption. The research reports the outcome of a surveyconducted among 124 Swedish college students, aged between 18 and 24, in spring 2012. Thestudy investigates college students’ news consumption and news dissemination of in terms ofmotives. The analysis suggests that motivations behind collage students’ news consumptionare independent of channels/media. Consumption motives appear to be similar betweentraditional and contemporary news media. Furthermore, news consumption and newsdissemination seem to be driven by completely different motives.

For more than three decades, citizen engagement in the political process in South Korea was strictly hampered by the harsh control of the public sphere by authoritarian regimes and mainstream media's failure to provide a democratic public forum. With the penetration of online and social media, the participatory culture of South Korea has significantly and qualitatively changed. During the last 10 some years, citizens actively used Internet media, such as online and social media, in mobilizing people for social and political causes. In recent elections, the use of Internet media has been considered one of the decisive factors of turnout and election results. The wide availability of information, the supply of unfettered discussion forums, and constant connectedness beyond space and geographical boundaries of the Internet are believed to work efficiently in leading citizens to the political process. However, unlike in Western countries, research to investigate the mechanism through which citizens engage in political affairs has been scant in South Korea. Drawing on the participatory democracy theory, this study examines how old and new media use in South Korea possibly change citizens' political attitudes and perceptions and how such changes subsequently trigger civic engagement in political affairs. Among various possible factors of political communication, this research pays special attention to the mediating roles of political efficacy and deliberation behaviors of the electorate during an election period in South Korea. A multitude of studies have proven that political efficacy is one of the most immediate attitudinal explanations of political action. As one acquires feelings of heightened political efficacy, one becomes more likely to get involved in the democratic process. Also, deliberation behaviors, such as political conversation and reflection on news played an important role in citizens' political life. This study explores how political efficacy and deliberation jointly affect the pathway that connects news consumption with political participation, drawing on prior political communication frameworks, such as the cognitive mediation model, the communication mediation model, and the O - S - R - O - R model. This study suggests a two-step mediation model which centers on the roles of deliberation and political efficacy in political communication. Particularly, the hypothesized model incorporates the interpersonal discussion component of the communication mediation model and the political efficacy component of the cognitive mediation model into one, in order to theorize a holistic information processing framework that channels the influences of news consumption on political engagement. The current study provides empirical evidence to the hypothesized model by carrying out two cross-sectional analyses and one auto-regressive analysis from the data of a two-wave panel survey that was conducted during the 2012 presidential campaign in South Korea. Findings reveal that political efficacy mediated the relationship between news attention and political participation. Political efficacy also played a mediating role between deliberation behaviors and political participation. In addition, deliberation behaviors mediated the relationship between news attention and political efficacy. Most important, the deliberation behavior and political efficacy jointly mediated the impact of news attention on political participation, supporting the hypothesized model of this study. Such results imply that interpersonal political discussion and intrapersonal reflection on political issues help citizens make sense of the information obtained from the media, and at the same time, boost the level of competence of their political beliefs. The results also suggest that deliberation and political efficacy play a pivotal role in connecting citizen's information seeking behaviors with political participation. The findings also show that, among diverse news channels, social media have the biggest performance power in explaining citizen engagement in the political process. In addition, the results of path comparisons demonstrate that the paths from news attention via online and social media to deliberation, political efficacy, and political participation were stronger in the Wave 2 model than in the Wave 1 model. The findings imply that online and social media are providing South Koreans a more effective pathway toward democratic participation than traditional media by motivating their deliberative and by shaping political attitudes. The present study makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the ways in which South Korean citizens take advantage of recent new media technologies to engage in political affairs. Considering that many South Koreans have long been excluded from the actual political process, this study's findings provide practical meanings in understanding how we can boost citizen engagement in the democratic process in this digital age. Additionally, the hypothesized model of the present research helps organize a large body of theories on news consumption and political participation in political communication. It also suggests larger social and cultural implications for a healthy democracy across countries beyond South Korea.

The news media is an important institution for all democracies. It helps the citizens to keep informed and be able to take part of the public debate, but in recent years the gap between the active and the inactive news consumer has increased. Does it make any difference? In order to contribute to the field, this research paper is to make a quantitative analysis to look at whether people with a high consumption of news from the Swedish mass media differ in their attitude towards the EU. As an ordered logistic regression was not applicable when analyzing the categorical dependent variable, that are measuring attitudes towards the EU, three binary logistic regressions was instead used. The results show that individuals with a high consumption of news from the Swedish mass media have higher odds of having an opinion of a positive attitude toward the EU. The data used are however self provided and voluntary survey data,which contain various biases. The fact that it is only observed and not experimental data makes it impossible to estimate a causal effect, which instead is up to future research.