TWO STUDIES GLIMPSE ONLINE NEWS HABITS

by Dave Amber

Last year, when the NASW program committee planned the 2001 workshops, the Internet seemed to be growing on an exponential curve reminiscent of population dynamics-surely there must be a limit. Science sites with varying quality of content fueled a growing concern about credibility of science journalism "content" on the Web. Who were the online science journalists, who funded them, and where were they trained? Questions like these inspired the title of this year's plenary session: "Science Dot-Com(munication): Ethics and Enterprise for Converging Media."

But that workshop planning occurred before April 2000, when the stock market plunge sent a cruelest-month shakedown through the dot-com world. As companies folded, computers and espresso machines sat idle in loft-style offices. Dot-com pink-slip parties hit the circuit in silicon towns across the country, doing away with some of the Web world's optimism.

Some traditional media may be breathing a sigh of relief as they oil their presses. But amid failed online media ventures, the question of online presence remains for traditional forms of media such as newspapers and magazines. The future of media-always a topical issue at an NASW meeting-meant the session was still relevant for discussion about converging media, who is going online, and what they read once they arrive. At one point during the session, Paul Grabowicz, coordinator of the New Media Program at the University of California, Berkeley, said the session's value was for those who survived April's shakedown. "Now that the marginals are out, how do the rest of us make a profit?" he asked.

The plenary session introduced two studies that first provided results in 2000-a study about online news readers viewing habits conducted by Stanford University, under the auspices of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and a report from the UCLA Center for Communication Policy about Internet usage that was meant to serve as a baseline for a longitudinal study of American Web habits.

The Stanford-Poynter Project, first released results in May 2000. Initiated about four years ago to study newspaper usage, it was expanded in 1998 to study online news. Its director, Marion Lewenstein, is professor of communication (emerita) at Stanford University and an early NASW member. She said that although user statistics about Web news sites already exist, the study intended to see what people are really reading and looking at when they visit the Web by analyzing their eye movements on the screen. Lewenstein readily admitted the study's small scale and limitations. It is not a scientific study with random sampling, but rather a small observational study. "I was out to get a reality check," she said.

The Poynter study used a forehead-wrapping headgear seemingly designed by mass communications dropouts from orthodontist school to track online readers' eye movements on their computer screen. News briefs and captions received first attention, as did banner ads. One of the more surprising observations was the relative importance of text and graphics. Eye tracking showed little interest in photographs and a dramatic delay between reading text and moving eyes to the graphics. Although modem connections might load text before photos and graphics, most of the participants viewed the Web through high-speed connections. Lewenstein said that quality of online graphics is perhaps responsible. "Not enough information is given in most online graphics. Many are transferred from the print version of newspapers and are too small or may not work in an online format.

Lewenstein saw increased news consumption from people reading many different sources, with the majority of users connecting to the Web going to browse, but with about three-fourths of them reading articles they had not planned to read. People were interlacing-moving to another site and returning to the original site-more than researchers had predicted. And, if users clicked on an article, they usually read the whole article, with crime, disaster, and war top categories of interest. About half of the 67 subjects read some science and medicine articles. Out of 103 science items, 31 were called up, and 10 were recalled. "When science and medicine are read, they're recalled to some extent and make an impression," she said.

The 1998 pilot study was conducted in the San Francisco-San Jose area. Later, subjects from Chicago and St. Petersburg, Florida were added. Promotional ads in the online versions of the Chicago Sun-Times, and St. Petersburg Times, recruited a total of 67 people who said they read the online version of those newspapers at least three times a week.

One of the panel respondents-Charlene Laino, executive health editor of MSNBC.com-said the report affirms a strategy of grabbing readers at the top with headlines and the important news of the story. Cute headlines don't work for most readers of science news and should be saved for dec headlines, Laino added. "Especially with science and medicine, readers want to know what's the point." The MSNBC strategy? A two-to-three paragraph synopsis linking to a complete article of 800-1200 words that also links to related stories and sites with complementary background information. Laino also said she sees the Web moving to more broadband/interactive television uses, with real-time video becoming increasingly important. "Here's where the Web can offer something."

Grabowicz, also a respondent, reflected on the bad business plans and overloaded Web pages that helped fuel last year's dot-com shakeup. He said that people browsing the net might visit six sites in a 30-minute period. "Do the math."

He said Web users are also doing their own news packaging by bookmarking sites, thus creating their own news products. He cautioned that journalists and media publishers must rethink the way they do their jobs. "Make your site the first stop," he said. People trust a site with lots of links and with raw information. The site should not be just a transfer of information from the print version to the Web. It must be more.

While the Stanford-Poynter study tracked the Web navigation of online news readers, the UCLA study reported on general usage patterns of the Internet. Jeffrey Cole, director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, reviewed his center's October 2000 report, "Surveying the Digital Future: How the PC and Internet Are Changing the World".

With support from the National Science Foundation, the center surveyed Internet users and nonusers in 2,000 households to develop a baseline profile of both groups. It asked both groups about communications patterns-do they communicate through e-mail, letters, or phone calls, for example-and general lifestyle choices about exercise, church, and other social activities. And for Internet users, it asked about online shopping habits and other Web behavior, as well as about privacy concerns. Cole called the report a "still photo" in the longitudinal study. In the future, as they "add motion" to the study, they will also compare usage in the United States with other countries.

Cole said 67 percent of those surveyed had Internet access and at least 46 percent of users accessed the Web from home at least once a month. About 42 percent of the nonusers said they expect to go online within the next year. Cole joked that there were three-and-a-half reasons why nonusers opted out-fear, cost, lack of perceived need and-the half reason-because "everyone else" is on the Web.

Based on the survey, Cole said America is optimistic about the Internet-people say it helps them better understand politics, for instance. He said people are not going online at the expense of their social lives, and Internet users are more likely to use all kinds of media, except for television, which they viewed 28 percent less than nonusers. But of concern to most users was the security of Internet transactions and the privacy of information exchanged online. It was "even more sobering that we expected," he said, adding that the survey showed fear of business intrusions replacing traditional fears of government intrusion in citizens' private lives.

One of the panel's respondents, Facsnet editor and director Randy Reddick, questioned how Cole would be able to maintain a longitudinal study of a fast-changing medium like the Internet when the questions may rapidly change with quickly evolving technology. Can there be built into the study a pattern of questions that evolves as the Internet evolves, or are they doomed to asking the same questions? Cole said the center is committed to keeping the study going for 10 to 15 years. He agreed that the best data would come if they repeated the same questions, but that it wasn't possible. "We have already found changes," he said.

Another panel respondent, Larry Pryor, remarked on the timing of the study with the April downturn for Web ventures. "They caught this extraordinary optimism of the Internet at just the right time," he said, adding that he expects a change in the data next year. Pryor, editor of the Online Journalism Review and director of the Online Journalism Program at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication, raised another concern. "The content providers have a major influence on how the resource is used," he said. "Studies that only look at usage bother me, because it's all tied together." He describe a 1980s "video text" experiment-the "Gateway Project"-in which users could watch video text of news and other programming, as well as enter chat rooms. Although focus groups praised the news and other features, it turned out people were spending most of their time in sex chat rooms. "They were lying to us," Pryor said. "They didn't want to tell us they were in there for sex."

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Dave Amber is a graduate student in science and technology journalism at Texas A&M University.

Science Dot-Com(munication): Ethics and Enterprise For Converging Media, organized by Rick Borchelt, Lynne Friedmann, Robert Lee Hotz, and Merry Bruns, was the plenary session of the 2001 NASW Workshops, held February 16 at UC Berkeley.