News in the interstices: The niches of mobile media in space and time

TLDR

The rapid expansion of mobile channels has created new opportunities for news consumption, and ecological theories suggest that such technologies can shift media biases by occupying niche spaces within users’ routine gaps. Participants recorded their news‑access behavior across multiple communication technologies, including mobile channels, using a diary method. The study found that traditional media remained in their established niches, whereas mobile channels were adopted primarily for news consumption during users’ interstitial moments.

Abstract

The recent growth of mobile channels has provided steadily increasing opportunities for individuals to access news and other mass-mediated content. Media ecological perspectives argue that the introduction of such new technologies can shift the existing biases in prevailing social systems. According to one ecological perspective, the theory of the niche, when new media technologies are successfully introduced into a domain, displacement may occur unless some alteration is made to the resource base. Interstices are conceptualized as the gaps in the routines of media users between scheduled activities. Through the use of a diary method, participants logged access to news using a variety of communication technologies, including mobile channels. Results indicated that traditional media occupied traditional niches with little evidence of displacement, while mobile channels occupied a new niche: access in the interstices.