1. Multimedia and Interactivity on Newspaper Websites: A Multi-Study Analysis of Six English-Speaking Countries Robert Bergland Lisa Crawford Sarah Noe David Hon Online Journalism Symposium 2010

2. Problem/Purpose of study Shortage of studies which compare different countries Different methodologies used in various studies makes true country-to-country comparisons problematic Goal: To examine several countries using a similar methodology

3. Brief Literature Overview Some key newspaper website studies: Peng et al 1999 survey and 80-site analysis Greer & Mensing’s 1997-2003 U.S. longitudinal study Sparks, Young and Darnell 2003 analysis of 113 Canadian news sites Bivings Group’s 2006 Top 100 circulation U.S. papers Hashim et al 2007 study of 12 Australian newspapers Russial’s 2009 survey of 210 U.S. daily newspapers

4. Research Questions RQ1: What are the levels of interactivity and multimedia within the individual countries? RQ2: What impact does circulation have on presence of interactive/multimedia features? RQ3: How do these countries compare in their newspapers’ use of multimedia/interactivity? RQ4: Is there a connection between computer ownership/broadband in the countries and their newspapers’ use of these features?

5. Methodology Looked at top six English-speaking countries where English was the first/dominant language: U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand Survey methodology (a la Russial) was considered, but dismissed: Concerns over response rate, reliable contact information, cost, time Chosen method: One-pass website analysis employed by Bivings Group, Darnell/Sparks/Young

6. Methodology Process Team reviewed literature, examined websites to create 25-feature taxonomy for U.S. 2007 study; added 7 features in 2008 study of the other countries Compiled lists of newspapers for each country from Editor and Publisher directory Used random sampling of U.S. papers (360, every fourth, of 1437 U.S. dailies), with a +/- 4.5% margin of error Used all of newspapers from other countries, eliminating duplicate sites (Note: only 12/60 Australian papers coded in time window) Conducted pilot/inter-rater reliability test (95% in 2007; 96% in 2008) of 10 websites Coded data over a one-month period

7. Number of Newspapers studied US: 360* (Random sample—25%) UK: 117 Canada: 100 Ireland: 9 New Zealand: 24 Australia: 12* (of 60)

8. General categories

9. Sample Spreadsheet

10. Results: Impact of Size U.K./Ireland Newspapers Sites

11. Results: Impact of Size U.S. Newspapers Sites

12. Results: Impact of Size Canadian Newspapers Sites (blue under 50K; red over 50K)

13. Results: Multimedia

17. Results: MM/Interactivity

18. Results: Interactivity

22. Results: Distribution

23. Connection Between Computer Ownership/Broadband Penetration In some countries, there seems to be a direct connection between computer ownership/broadband and the ability and motivation for newspapers to put multimedia and interactivity on their websites. Ex: Ukraine with 1.7% broadband penetration in 2008, had very little multimedia especially in a 2009 study:

24. Connection Between Computer Ownership/Broadband Penetration Not much of a connection in English-speaking countries studied U.S./U.K. numbers were fairly similar in many categories --Too little difference in CO/BP to judge, esp given year gap Canada, with highest % of computer ownership and higher than U.S. broadband, had some of the lowest rates of multimedia/interactivity New Zealand did show some connection, with the lowest rates of CO/BP and also the lowest amount of multimedia/interactivity

25. Computer Ownership 2006

26. Broadband Penetration 2008

27. So what explains the difference? Perhaps Economic Factors: Resources -Personnel -Equipment/Software Economic Factors: Ownership/chains Social Factors--Computer usage and expectations of users Focus of management Journalism education/training

28. Limitations of study/Future research Weakness of content analysis vs survey One-pass vs multipass—might not have viewed site on typical day Redo study in 2011, looking at all sites during the same period for equal comparison