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Running head: DEPENDENCY RELATIONS AND ONLINE NEWS EXPERIENCE








Dependency Relations and Online News Experience: Predicting 
Online Readings of News, International News and National News
Jin Yang
Doctoral Student
College of Mass Communication & Media Arts
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL 62901
(618) 453-3273
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Submitted to the MacDougall Student Paper Award competition of the Newspaper Division of the AEJMC 2002 Annual Convention, Miami Beach, FL. August 7-10.

Dependency Relations and Online News Experience: Predicting
Online Readings of News, International News and National News

Abstract
This study examined the extent to which online news experience can be predicted from the perspective of dependency relations after controlling for demographics and perceived credibility of Internet news. Generally, the survey findings demonstrated the power of Internet Dependency Relations in accounting for online news experience. Specifically, the intensity of Internet Dependency Relations is found to be a strong predictor for online readings of news, international news and national news after holding demographics and perceived credibility constant. In terms of the scope of Internet Dependency Relations, social understanding dependency relation and social play dependency relation turned out to be best predictors for news. For International news, social understanding, self-understanding and action dependency relations played a significant part. For national news, it was social understanding and self-understanding dependency relations that explained its usage in a significant way.

Dependency Relations and Online News Experience: Predicting
Online Readings of News, International News and National News
As a multi-function new medium, Internet is gaining popularity among the public at an amazingly fast speed and its adoption has reached the critical mass in the U.S. Correspondingly, research on Internet usage, Internet role in society and Internet influence on individuals has proliferated and continued to grow. However, we still don't have enough knowledge of the Internet utilized as a new means for news consumption. In modern society, news is an integral part of life. People consume news all day long, from the moment they are up reading newspapers at the breakfast table to the moment they go to bed watching TV for the next day's weather. Among various news channels available to the public, how important is the Internet as a new way of getting informed of what is going on in the world? To what extent do demographics, the perceived credibility of Internet news and the established dependency relations with the Internet contribute to online news experience? These are the questions this study is mostly interested in.
Internet Incorporation in Life
Internet has entered the American mainstream as predicted by many industry practitioners and research organizations. The profile of average adult American Internet users is closer to that of average Americans. Specifically, 49% of the 2001 online population are males and 51% females, which represents the exact gender division of U.S. general population. Age wise, online population has about 76% people aged between 18 to 49, 24% above 50, while the U.S. general population has about 63% aged between 18 to 49 and 37% above 50. Income wise, the 2001 online population has a little bit higher income than the U.S. population (Pastore, 2001b). According to a study by the U.S. government, Internet use is growing at a rate of two million new users every month (CyberAtlas Staff, 2002). The findings point to the fact that the Internet is penetrating into the U.S. population and integrating into the U.S. life.
However, the Internet is not just a third place after home and work place for socialization (Howard, Rainie & Jones, 2000). People check email, play games, seek information, pursue academic research, conduct business transactions, make travel reservations and do a variety of things there. The versatility of the Internet and the pervasiveness of the Internet have generated a great amount of research on its potential impact on individuals and society. In fact, the possibility of its replacement of traditional mass media has been debated and tested (e.g. Althaus & Tewksbury, 2000; Davis & Owen, 1998; Hughes & Hill, 1998). At the present stage, the findings indicate that the Internet is supplementing the traditional news media usage rather than replacing the usage (Althaus & Tewksburg, 2000). However, this study is not interested in finding out whether the Internet will eventually replace other media in terms of news consumption. Instead, it is more interested in examining how the Internet is employed as a news channel and what may account for the usage in the online environment.
Online News 
Basically, online news services can be roughly categorized into three groups: online services of traditional news organizations, newcomers without any established traditional mass media counterparts and Internet portal companies delivering news as part of their services. Back in the early 1990s, local newspaper San Jose Mercury News pioneered online textual retrieval of stories (Davis, 1999). In the following years, U.S. newspapers available through electronic means and through powerful online commercial search services such as NEXIS, DIALOG and DataTimes amounted to 93 (Duhon and Aufdemberge, 1998). From July 1996 to 1997, the number of U.S. newspapers online has grown dramatically from 745 to 2,059 (Li, 1998). Worldwide, the number of newspapers being published online was 20 in 1994 to nearly 4000 in 1997 (Althaus & Tewksbury, 2000). Today almost every major television network, newspaper organizations and cable news service provides online issues (Davis, 1999; Kiernan & Levy, 1999). 
The newcomers on the Internet such as AllPolitics are alternatives to established news organization services. Even though they are total rookies in news service, a considerable number of news seekers or users did make use of these alternative web sites for news service. In addition, many portals, major Web sites that are the user's point of entry onto the Internet, deliver news as part of the service. Examples include America Online/Netscape, Yahoo! and Lycos. The "front page" of the portals provides a list of news headlines for a quick scan. The click of a certain headline brings up a detailed list of specific stories (Seib, 2001).
Matching the rapid growth of Internet news outlets is the parallel rise in the usage of Internet news. Seventy-one percent of webmasters of news organizations reported the significant access to their web sites and 79% said that their sites had more than 2000 "hits" per week in 1996 (Davis, 1999). The increasing rate of online news access is also impressive. In 1996, 23% of Americans went online for news. In 1998, 41% did so (Noack, 1999). According to Pastore (2001a), an average of 11.7 million Americans visited online news sites each day the week after the September 11 tragedy, double the six million who visited news sites in the week before the attack. Online news activitity is rated as the third most popular online activities after checking email and surfing the web for fun by the U.S. public (Pew Internet & American Life, 2000). Scarborough Research's survey found that more than two out of five Internet users (45%) had read an online newspaper in the last 30 days and half had logged on to a national newspaper web site like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today (Scarborough, 2001).
The advantages of publishing on the Internet might appeal to individuals in search of news and information. Online news consumers can track issues and events in much greater depth than traditional news media consumers. People can visit the Web any time of the day to receive up-to-date information on nearly any topic they choose (Althaus & Tewksbury, 2000; Noack, 1999). It is these advantages that might drive news seekers to get online for news rather than rely on TV or subscribe to newspapers for news. However, as a news behavior, online news consumption still shares many features that characterized traditional news media experiences. For instance, they all rely on content to keep the audience, and the news production still largely depends on news reporters to collect information. To a certain extent, we can still identify the Internet news with traditional media news. As a result, the insights into online news experience can be drawn from past news research that is rich in the documentation of the difference between those who engage in traditional news behaviors and those who don't.
Demographic Determinants of News Usage
Due to the newspaper readership decline in the 1970s and 1980s, the need to identify the reasons for the decline produced a lot of research on profiling national newspaper readers versus nonreaders at that period of time (e.g. Burgoon and Burgoon, 1980; Sobal and Jackson-Beeck, 1981). The comparison suggested the importance of demographics in accounting for newspaper readership difference. For instance, Burgoon and Burgoon (1980) examined newspaper readership and showed that age and income were significant demographic predictors of newspaper readership as was the satisfaction with the local newspaper. Westley and Severin (1964a) reported newspaper nonreaders were likely to be lower in education and occupational status; they were either very young (less than 20) or very old (more than 60); and gender did not make a difference between readers and nonreaders. Ten years later, Penrose, Weaver, Cole and Shaw (1974) duplicated the study and confirmed the same results.
In a different geographic environment -- Canada, Baer (1991) demonstrated the usefulness of age, education, income and sex as significant demographic predictors of Canadian newspapers besides the predictors of mother tongue, province, occupation and community size. Sobal and Jackson-Beeck (1981), through utilizing the General Social Surveys conducted annually by the National Opinion Research Center in 1972, 1975, 1977 and 1978, identified a variety of significant variables in distinguishing national newspaper readers and nonreaders. Among others, age, education, race and income are the demographic variables that have been found to be significant. 
What should be noted in Sobal and Jackson-Beeck's (1981) study is that besides demographic variables, both attitudinal variables such as political party preference and behavioral variables such as political participation and social participation are also examined as predictors in the study. There is a good reason to examine attitudinal variables in the study of news consumption because psychological or attitudinal differences either represent "causes" of differences in reading habits, or the secondary effects of demographic differences (Bogart, 1989). On the other hand, Internet studies have shown that using demographics to explain online behaviors has limited success as a consequence of the mainstreaming of the Internet user population (GUV, 1998). Researchers have to search for other attitudinal variables beyond those of demographics in explaining news behaviors. One of the heavily researched attitudinal aspects influencing news behavior or news usage is perceived credibility of news.
Attitudinal Antecedents of News Usage 
The studies for more than five decades on credibility (Mayo & Leshner, 2000) have suggested that there is a strong correlation between perceived credibility of a medium and the usage of the medium (eg. Johnson & Kaye, 1998; Rimmer and Weaver, 1989; Westley & Severin, 1964b). Gaziano (1988) studied newspaper credibility and has concluded that if people don't trust the media, they are less likely to pay attention to the medium. In the same vein, researchers found that the preferred medium is judged as the more credible medium. For instance, Rimmer and Weaver (1987) reported that 22% of those who said television was the top choice for local news also rated television credibility higher. Westley and Severin(1964b) found heavy radio listeners perceived radio as credible. As the Internet is emerging as a new source of information, the credibility question is revisited to conclude whether the Internet news is trustworthy enough to get people utilize the new platform for news. 
Johnson and Kaye (1998) surveyed 308 politically-interested web users and found that online newspapers and online candidate literature were viewed as more credible than their traditionally-delivered counterparts. They also found that the politically-interested Web users rely more on Internet sources and judge them as more credible than traditional sources. Schweiger (2000) conducted a survey on the credibility of World Wide Web in Germany in comparison to television and newspapers and found that the credibility of web is seen as quite positive even though not as high as television and newspapers among German web-users and non-users. In another U.S. industry study, among the 550 Internet users surveyed by the New York-based ScreamingMedia in 1999, 63% said the Internet provides them the most in-depth information; 57% said the Internet has "the most up-to-date information" and 51% said the Internet has "the most accurate information" (Astor, 2000). Hence, credibility seems to be a crucial variable in examining individuals' actual usage of Internet for news.
Gratifications and Media Dependency Relations in News Usage
It has been suggested that Internet usage is purposive rather than ritualistic. Weir (1999) noted, in his study of electronic newspaper, that media consumption is purposeful supporting the uses and gratifications theory of media use. As a psychological communication perspective, uses and gratifications theory (Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch, 1974) assumes the active role played by media users in using the media. The theory postulates that people use media because they believe media will help them achieve their goals and satisfy their needs. 
For instance, Blumler and McQuail (1969) found, in a study of the 1964 general election in Britain, that people watched party broadcasts primarily out of the need of surveillance of the political environment. In a study of electronic bulletin board, Rafaeli (1986) found recreation, diversion, entertainment were ranked as higher gratifying goals. Garramone, Harris and Anderson (1986) examined political electronic bulletin board. They identified surveillance, personal identity, diversion and technological access to legislators as the gratifications satisfied. Ferguson and Perse (2000) explored the similarities of gratifications derived from usage of television and the World Wide Web. They found that among the six predictors for visited news web sites, entertainment, pass time and gender were significant predictors even though pass time exerted a negative influence.
However, because of a lack of a consistent conceptualization, the uses and gratification approach is always characterized by a different range of gratifications for different media and studies (Grant, Guthrie & Ball-Rokeach, 1991). As a result, it is difficult to do media comparison to track the similarities or difference across different types of media or different genres of media. Fortunately, such a research hole in media usage has been filled in by Ball-Rokeach's media system dependency theory. The theory offers a stable measurement scale to facilitate the research efforts in locating motives behind news consumption and make comparisons plausible.
The media system dependency theory regards the dependency relation of the individuals with the media system as the most important factor in dictating media usage. The dependency relation originates in media's power or control over information sources (Ball-Rokeach, 1998). As is known, individuals, groups and organizations have to rely on these information resources to attain their goals (Grant, Guthrie & Ball-Rokeach, 1991; Ball-Rokeach, 1998). The goals-resources dependency relationships at the individual level is termed as micro media dependency relations and are defined as:
The extent to which attainment of an individual's goals is contingent upon access to the information resources of the media system, relative to the extent to which attainment of media system goals is contingent upon the resources controlled by individuals. (Ball-Rokeach, Power, Guthrie, & Waring, 1990, p. 250)
In short, a person's media system dependency relations should be a function of both personal goals and perceptions of the utility of media resources (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984). 
What should be noted is the highlighted relational aspect of the construct of MSD, which distinguishes it from other commonly used terms of media dependency or media reliance. The definition of MSD relations point to the asymmetric (one-way) nature of the relation because individuals depend upon media more rather than the other way around. Hence derived the conceptual dimension of the intensity of the relation to gauge the asymmetry of the relations (Loges, 1994). For individuals, intensity is operationally defined as the "perceived helpfulness" of media in attainment of personal goals (Ball-Rokeach, 1998; Loges, 1994). Another conceptual dimension of the relations is scope, which refers to the range of types of goals a person pursues through the informational resources of the media system. For individuals, the goal scope ranges from understanding, orientation to play (Ball-Rokeach, 1998). These goals are further conceptualized in individual and social dimensions; understanding as self-understanding and social understanding, orientation as action orientation and interaction orientation and play as solitary play and social play (Loges, 1994). 
	While social understanding and self-understanding both implicate cognitive dimensions (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984), social understanding is the knowledge of the social environment and perception of individuals' role in that environment. Self-understanding relates to the development of self-concept including self-esteem, beliefs, values and attitudes (Loges, 1994). Action and interaction concerns how to formulate detailed strategies to act and interact with others (Ball-Rokeach., Rokeach., & Grube, 1984). Play dependency implies fantasy escape but also sheer enjoyment of recreational activities (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984). Solitary play refers to the enjoyment or diversion of one's self and social play is the enjoyment or diversion in the company of others (Loges, 1994). 
	Based on these six dimensions, a person's dependency relation with the medium can be quantified in terms of intensity and scope. As a matter of fact, researchers have demonstrated the usefulness of MSD in exploring media usage. For instance, Loges and Ball-Rokeach (1993) examined newspaper readership from the perspective of MSD relations and found that dependency relations for social and self understanding explain a considerable amount of variance in newspaper readership beyond the variance explained by demographic variables. Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach and Grube (1984) have found that the individual's dependency relations with television affected individuals' values, beliefs and even behaviors. In addition, the dependency relations with the television, the genre of TV shopping program, and genre personae of TV shopping program hosts have been found to be associated with viewing behavior and highly predictive of purchasing behavior (Grant, Guthrie and Ball-Rokeach, 1991; Skumanich & Kintsfather, 1998). Furthermore, Becker and Whitney (1980) suggested that those who had more intense dependency relations with television news tended to have negative perceptions of the government and to be less well informed. Loges (1994) supported his proposition that the more intense dependency relations with newspapers, radio, magazines and television, the more individuals perceive the social and natural environment to be threatening by a large-scale survey. The cognitive influence imposed by media dependency relation has been confirmed in the study of media roles in individuals' value choices under the value-choice framing of health care reform by Ball-Rokeach and Loges (1996). 
	Considering the diverse activities that can be pursued on the Internet and the Internet's gradual integration into the public's daily lives, it is quite likely that some kind of dependency relations have been established between individuals and the Internet. Patwardhan and Yang (2002) have examined Internet Dependency Relations (IDR) to measure individuals' dependency relations with the Internet to satisfy their understanding, orientation and play goals in social and personal dimensions, as defined by MSD theory. They have shown that a positive but restrained dependency relation between individuals and the Internet is in place and that IDR is a significant predictor of online shopping and online news reading. Indeed, many researchers have suggested that media dependency relations be good predictors in examining media behaviors (e.g. Loges & Ball-Rokeach, 1993; Loges, 1994; Skumanich & Kintsfather, 1998). As one of the fast growing online activities in recent years, online news consumption deserves a direct academic inquiry and empirical testing. Therefore this study focuses its effort on examining three kinds of online news: news (in general), international news and national news. Specifically, it attempts to find out to what extent Internet Dependency Relation accounts for people's online news experience beyond the variance explained by demographics and perceived credibility.
News:
RQ1a: To what extent does the intensity of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility?
RQ1b: To what extent does the scope of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility?
International news:
RQ2a: To what extent does the intensity of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of international news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility?
RQ2b: To what extent does the scope of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of international news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility?
National news:
RQ3a: To what extent does the intensity of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of national news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility?
RQ3b: To what extent does the scope of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of national news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility?
Conceptual and Operational Definitions
Online reading of news was conceptualized as the extent to which respondents read various kinds of news by accessing any news-based web sites including those of well-established news organizations, newcomers in news delivery services and of news service of Internet portal companies. It was operationalized in terms of the amount of time spent reading news online every day by asking respondents to indicate their choice on the following scale: zero hour, less than one hour, one to two hours, two to three hours, more than three hours. The general term of news is used to imply its comprehensive reference to all kinds of news including sports news, political news, business news, technology news, science news and etc. 
Online reading of international news was conceptualized as the extent to which respondents accessed any news-based web sites reading world news. It was operationalized as a frequency variable by asking individuals to pick their choice on the following scale: at least once a day, a few times a week, once a week, less than once a week and never.
Online reading of national news was conceptualized as the extent to which respondents accessed any news-based web sites reading national or U.S. news. It was operationalized as a frequency variable by asking individuals to indicate their choice on the scale of at least once a day, a few times a week, once a week, less than once a week and never.
The perceived credibility of the Internet news was conceptualized or defined as a global evaluation of the objectivity of Internet news. What should be pointed out here is that the perceived credibility in this context doesn't refer to specific news stories or news sources but to the news channel as a message carrier as a whole. Therefore perceived credibility of Internet news is the extent to which respondents trust Internet news as a whole. It was operationalized as a four-item index featuring accuracy, believability, fairness and in-depth information on semantic differential scale from very believable to not at all believable, which has been used in Johnson and Kaye' 1998 study on comparing Internet and traditional sources credibility (See Appendix). Among others, accuracy, fairness have been the ones that are used commonly across media to measure the perceived credibility (e.g. Newhagen & Nass, 1989; Sundar, 1999). 
Internet dependency relations (IDR) was conceptualized as the extent to which users depended on the Internet to meet their six goals: social understanding, self understanding, action orientation, interaction orientation, social play and solitary play, as defined by MSD theory. It was operationalized as the respondents' mean score on the 18 item MSD scale (each of the six goals was measured by three items) developed by Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach and Grube (1984) and Grant, Guthrie and Ball-Rokeach (1991) (See Appendix).
Method
This study used a cross sectional email survey. The population of interest was a large mid-western university in the United States. Even though the university population is hardly representative of the U.S. population, the inclusion of all members of university such as civil service workers and retired members provides a better representation of all segments of general population.
Sampling
Respondents were selected using multi-stage stratified random sampling. This sampling method is a better method than simple sampling because it ensures representativeness of the whole population. The university population was stratified into two groups-students and non-students-to ensure age and income variability. For the student population, a computer program called SAS was used to generate a random sample of 500 email addresses from 11,850 students. The non-student population was stratified into five groups and 10% was drawn randomly from each group: faculty, staff, faculty and staff, civil service and retired members. A total of 563 email addresses was obtained from the non-student group. Together the total sample size for this study was 1063 respondents (500 students, 144 faculty, 122 staff, 27 faculty and staff, 219 civil service, 51 retired members).
Statistic Analysis
Reliability analysis was conducted for the Internet dependency relation dimension scales and perceived credibility scale. Hierarchical multiple regression was employed to test the association between IDR and online news reading experience.
Survey Development
IDR scale was borrowed from the previously validated 18-item Individual media dependency scale used by Loges (1998) and Patwardhan and Yang (2002). One single item was used for online reading of news (how many hours spent on Internet news every day). One single question was asked for online reading of international news. Another single one was for online reading of national news (how often do you get international news and national news from Internet: at least once a day, a few times a week, once a week, less than once a week, never). A four-item scale (from very to not at all) for perceived Internet news credibility was utilized to form an index of credibility suggested by Johnson and Kaye (1998). Demographic variables were measured as follows: age by asking birth of year; gender by choosing male or female; income measured on an ordinal level (Please select the appropriate range to reflect your income: less than $14,999, $15,000 to $24,999, $25,000 to $34,999, $35,000 to $49,999, $50,000 to $74,999, $75,000 to $99,999 and above $100,000); education measure on an ordinal level (from high school diploma to doctoral degree); ethnicity on a nominal level scale (Indians, African, Latino, Caucasian, Orientals, International); status on a nominal level scale (faculty, student, staff, faculty & staff, civil service, retired, others). 
Survey Administration
This survey was distributed by emails from the researcher's personal account to respondents' accounts. E-mail survey offers an efficient way of collecting data within short period of time and with limited expenses since it eliminates postage, printing, and interviewer costs (Schaefer & Dillman, 1998). The purpose of the study legitimates the usage of the email survey since those who have the Internet access and electronic mail are more likely to pursue online news activities.
Email questionnaire followed the same format as the mail survey. A cover letter was composed to explain the nature and purpose of the survey, time needed to do the survey and appropriate approval of sending the survey by the university authority. Respondents' right to opt out was also offered in the letter. The letter and the questionnaire were sent out as inline text. The respondents were instructed on how to answer the email survey and send it back to the author. Other options of doing the survey were suggested for respondents if the normal way of replying, checking and sending back doesn't work. Respondents can choose to print the survey, do a pen and paper survey and send it back to the author via campus mail. Or they can use cutting and pasting function if the message was truncated when the reply button was hit. Two mailing were done within a period of two weeks of data collection. The second mailing was done at the end of the first week. 
Reliability and Validity 
Data gathered from a pilot study to pretest the Internet Dependency Relations scale on the overall 18 items indicated a very high Cronbach's alpha (.93). For social understanding dependency relation, Cronbach's alpha is .74; self-understanding, .75; action, .55; interaction, .64; social play, .77; solitary play, .89. Inter-item reliability for perceived credibility of the Internet news was satisfactory (.78).
Even though it is not appropriate to generalize the findings of the study to the whole U.S. population, it can be argued that the sample represents many characteristics of the U.S. population because the stratified sampling method ensured a better representation of the university community. At minimum, the validity of the findings is ensured in terms of university population. 
Findings
A total of 1063 email questionnaires were sent over a two-week period. One hundred fifty two emails were returned as failed deliveries and ten respondents refused to participate. Hence for a total of 901email surveys delivered to the respondents, 147 responses were received, a response rate of 16.3%. Five incomplete surveys (either truncated due to the Internet usage or over half of the questions not checked by respondents) were deleted, leaving 142 valid questionnaires for analysis. 
The low response rate may place a limitation on the generalizing capacity of the findings, nevertheless, this response rate is not an uncommon case in comparison to other email survey studies. Sheehan (2001) analyzed response rates to email surveys undertaken from 1986 to 2000 and identified the year of undertaking the study as a significant predictor for the response rate. As the year increases, the response rate decreases. In the most recent years of 1999 and 2000, the average response rate has dropped to around 25%, from which this study's 16.3% is not extremely far.
Demographic Profile of Participants
Faculty is the only group that has been over-represented in the sample and student is the one that has been under-represented. All other non-student groups have been properly represented in the sample. Specifically faì¥Á
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NDENCY RELATIONS AND ONLINE NEWS EXPERIENCE








Dependency Relations and Online News Experience: Predicting 
Online Readings of News, International News and National News
Jin Yang
Doctoral Student
College of Mass Communication & Media Arts
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL 62901
(618) 453-3273
<a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0209C%26L%3DAEJMC%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D614720%26B%3D--%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D%253D_7673598%253D%253D_%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522yangj.txt%2522%26N%3Dyangj.txt%26attachment%3Dq" >[log in to unmask]</a>









Submitted for presentation review to the AEJMC 2002 Annual Conference, Miami Beach, FL. August 7-10.

Dependency Relations and Online News Experience: Predicting
Online Readings of News, International News and National News

Abstract
This study examined the extent to which online news experience can be predicted from the perspective of dependency relations after controlling for demographics and perceived credibility of Internet news. Generally, the survey findings demonstrated the power of Internet Dependency Relations in accounting for online news experience. Specifically, the intensity of Internet Dependency Relations is found to be a strong predictor for onl p < .001) (Table 1). Significant differences were also found for IDR dimensions of self-understanding (F = 2.60, p < .05), action (F = 2.9, p < .05), interaction ( F = 5.6, p < 001), social play (F = 4.5, p < .01) and solitary play ( F = 10.9, p < .001). Social understanding is the only dimension that did not have a significant difference across groups suggesting all groups have recognized the Internet's role in facilitating social understanding in the same way. 
Generally speaking, respondents rated Internet news at a relatively high end of credibility. They perceived Internet news credible enough (mean = 3.5, between "somewhat credible" to "credible"). There is no association between group status and perceived credibility.
Online News Reading Experience
Two out of ten (20%) of the respondents are online news avoiders meaning they have zero hour of online news reading every day. A majority (66%) is regular news users who are exposed to online news for less than an hour every day. More than one out of ten are news lovers, spending one to two hours online every day for news. The news enthusiasts who read news online for more than 3 hours every day take almost 3% of the sample. 
	Individuals' online news reading differed significantly in terms of international and national news (chi-square = 10.52, p < .05). Loyal national news readers (read news at least once a day) are almost 10% more than loyal international news readers. Regular national news readers (a few times a week) are 4% higher than regular international news readers. For "once a week" news reader groups, the difference is 5% between national news and international news. There are more international news avoiders (27.5%) than national news avoiders (18.3%). In "less than once a week" group, international news readers are almost 10% more than national news readers.
	What should be noted is the fact that general Internet usage is comparatively higher than news reading. Four out of ten respondents (35% of the sample) are in the one to two hours group. Internet enthusiasts (stay online for at least three hours) take about 13% in contrast to 3% of news enthusiasts. Internet avoiders (zero hour online every day) are only 1.4% in contrast to 20% of news avoiders. This is not surprising since people do many more things than news reading on the Internet.
RQ1a: Intensity of IDR and Online Reading of News (Table 2)
RQ1a investigated the extent to which the intensity of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility. Hierarchical Multiple Regression was run to test the relationship. When demographic variables are used to predict online reading of news, age is the only significant predictor (Table 2) suggesting the older the respondents, the less time they devote to online news reading. And more than 8% of overall variance in news reading time can be attributed to demographics. When attitudinal variable of credibility is added to the overall model, the only significant predictor is the perceived credibility of Internet news. And more than 4% of variance in news reading can be uniquely accounted for by the perceived credibility (p < .05). The intensity of IDR adds a further significant 8.6% of variance to the model, resulting in one fifth (20.9) of the variance in online news reading accounted for by the overall model.
RQ1b: Scope of IDR and Online Reading of News (Table 3)
RQ1b examined to what extent the scope of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility. Table 3 shows age is the only significant demographic variable in explaining news reading. Credibility is a significant predictor after demographics are controlled. When dimensions of IDR scope are added into the model, the variance explained by credibility is lost to IDR dimensions. Specifically dependency relations for social understanding and social play are two significant predictors of online news reading time. Demographic predictors together explain 8.1% of the variance. The credibility variable adds a significant 4.2% to the variance. The scope of IDR adds a significant 15.1% of the variance to the model. Overall, 27.4% of variance in online news reading time can be attributed to the scope of Internet dependency relations, demographics and perceived credibility. 
RQ2a: Intensity of IDR and Online Reading of International News (Table 4)
RQ2a checked the relationship between the intensity of Internet dependency relations and online reading of international news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility. None of the demographics is a significant predictor of international news reading (Table 4). Perceived credibility is not significant in predicting the variance either when it is added after demographics. When the IDR intensity is entered into the model, IDR intensity is the only significant predictor. Around 13% of the variance of online international news reading time can be explained by the IDR intensity, credibility and demographics. IDR intensity adds a unique contribution of 6.2% (p < .01) to the variance of online reading of international news.
RQ2b: Scope of IDR and Online Reading of International News (Table 5)
RQ2b examined the relationships between the scope of Internet dependency relations and online reading of international news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility. The model (Table 5) revealed none of the demographic variables is a significant predictor of international news reading. Credibility is not a significant predictor of online reading of international news when demographic variables are controlled. However, when six dimensions of IDR scope are entered into the model, overall, 31.9% of the variance in online reading of international news can be explained by all the variables. IDR scope dimensions add a significant 25.3% variance to the international news reading. Three dimensions out of six are found to be significant predictors of online international news reading: social understanding, self-understanding and action orientation. 
RQ3a: Intensity of IDR and Online Reading of National News (Table 6)
RQ3a investigated to what extent the Intensity of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of national news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility. It is found that demographics are not significant predictors of national news reading. Perceived credibility is a significant predictor after demographics are controlled and adds a significant 8.2% variance to explain online reading of national news. After IDR intensity is entered into the model, IDR intensity adds a significant 8.5% variance to national news reading. Overall, around 22.2% variance in national news reading can be attributed to demographics, perceived credibility and IDR intensity. Credibility and IDR intensity are found to be the only significant predictors in national news reading.
RQ3b: Scope of IDR and Online Reading of National News (Table 7)
This question examined to what extent the scope of Internet dependency relations explain online reading of national news after controlling for individuals' age, gender, education, ethnicity, income, status and perceived credibility. None of the demographics serve as a significant predictor. Perceived credibility is a significant predictor after controlling for demographics (p <. 01), and dependency relations for social understanding and self understanding are significant predictors for online national news reading time after controlling for demographics and perceived credibility. Overall, almost half of the variance (45.3%) in online reading of national news is attributable to the whole model. Credibility adds 8.2% variance (p < .01) and IDR dimensions 31.7% (p < .001).
Discussion
	As the Internet is penetrating into the general population, it is not only becoming more influential in people's personal lives but also reshaping the interdependency between individuals, media and society. Since individuals are more and more reliant on media resources to meet their personal goals, there is no wonder that the relationship between the media and individuals should develop towards a more positive and intense direction. The dependency relation found in this study is moderate suggesting at present the Internet has not become a fully embraced news medium for all the individuals. Generally speaking, young people seem to have a more intense relationship with the Internet than old people. Specifically, students, more than any other groups, appear to be more reliant on the Internet to meet their social understanding, self-understanding, action and social play goals. 
	The study also examined the perceived credibility of Internet news. It found a more positive attitude toward Internet news, indicating the overall trust people place on Internet news testifying the growing usage of online news as a new way to get informed. 
The study also provided empirical evidence about the popularity of online news activities. A majority of respondents are Internet news regular readers spending less than one hour on Internet news every day. A small portion of respondents are "Internet news lovers" spending more than one hour a day on Internet news even though one fifth of them are Internet news avoiders (zero hours of Internet news). A further investigation of online news reading revealed individuals did not distribute their news reading evenly on international and national news. More people are reading national news than international news, which may imply the importance of national news in the minds of U.S public.
	The focus of the study is on the examination of the extent to which Internet Dependency Relations moderated online news reading. It found that no matter what kind of news is investigated and explored, IDR intensity has consistently been found to be a significant predictor for online news reading after controlling for demographics and perceived credibility. It appeared that demographics are no longer very useful and significant predictors for online news reading behaviors except in the case of age predicting online reading of news. It might be that the Internet has incorporated into peoples' lives and mainstreamed the usage trend.
	The attitude toward the Internet news is captured by the perceived credibility of the Internet news. The credibility of Internet news always adds significant unique contribution to online reading of news and national news after controlling for the demographics. However, the perceived credibility of Internet news fails to add significant contributions to online reading of international news. The reason might be international new reading takes extra efforts to fulfill, such as more time and more personal experiences or involvement. The simple attitudinal variable of perceived credibility can't collect enough motivation.
	Generally speaking, a strong association between IDR intensity and online news reading experience has been established after holding demographics and perceived credibility constant. Specifically, social understanding dependency relation and social play dependency relations can significantly predict online reading of news. It is expected that social understanding plays an important role in news reading experience since one of the functions of news is to keep the public informed or to provide a timely account of current affairs (McQuail, 1994). 
What seems puzzling is the role of social play dependency relation. As defined at the beginning of the paper, play dependency implies fantasy escape and sheer enjoyment of recreational activities (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984). Specifically, social play is the enjoyment or diversion in the company of others (Loges, 1994). The speculation might be that those who have a strong social play attachment with Internet read news for entertainment or fun. Sundar (1999) explored receivers' criteria for perception of print and online news. He pointed out the psychological framework of news receivers differ from news senders. Receivers could perceive a great deal of entertainment value in news and information value in entertainment. This study seems to lend support to the argument. 
Another alternative explanation is that those who have developed a strong social play dependency relation with Internet are more likely to pursue social activities around news such as exchange news information or recommend news web sites or participate in news forum on Internet. What can be argued, however, is both social understanding and social play are social dimensions of the scope of IDR. And news, by nature, is a socially produced and socially shared knowledge of the society. It may be the social dimensions of the dependency relations and news that bond them together. 
A great amount of variance in online reading of national news can be accounted for by IDR intensity after controlling for demographics and perceived credibility. Specifically, social understanding and self-understanding are two significant predictors in the variance of online national news after controlling for demographics and perceived credibility. As is noted in the past research (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984; Smith, 1980; Loges and Ball-Rokeach, 1993), the availability of more and more personal information on mass media may enhance individuals' expectation of mass media as a source of self-understanding. This might be the case for the Internet. At the same time, it may be possible that social understanding and self-understanding are reinforced by the same information (Loges and Ball-Rokeach, 1993). What is obvious is the fact that both self-understanding and social understanding constitute understanding dimensions of IDR scope. People read news in order to understand others, the world or themselves. Its prominent purpose of news still features in online national news. At any rate, this study's finding on national news reading is in line with Loges and Ball-Rokeach's (1993) study on newspaper readership in which social understanding and self understanding were identified dependency factors in explaining newspaper readership.
International news wise, three dimensions of IDR scope: social understanding, self-understanding and action are found to be significant predictors. International news reading can be predicted almost in the same way as national news reading. However, what distinguishes international news from national news is the role played by action dimension of IDR in international news. Its influence on international news is not positive but negative implying more intense action dependency relation with Internet is associated with less international news reading time. Action and interaction concerns how to formulate detailed strategies to act and interact with others (Ball-Rokeach., Rokeach., & Grube). The stronger the action dependency relation individuals have established with the Internet, the less likely they spend time reading international news. The speculation might be because they are too busy shopping online, searching for where to go for practical life-needed services such as health, finance or household and where to go for evening and weekend activities that they can't spare extra time for online reading of international news. After all there are only 24 hours a day. 
In summary, online news experience, as a behavioral entity, can be explained to a great extent by Internet Dependency Relations intensity or by Internet Dependency Relations dimensions after controlling for demographics and attitudinal variable of perceived credibility, confirming the importance of examining the dependency relation with media in media study. Social understanding and self-understanding are two consistent predictors of both international news and national news reading. However, international news reading may conflict with action dependency relation resulting in significant reduction in international news reading. On the other hand, online reading of news assocì¥Á
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 head: DEPENDENCY RELATIONS AND ONLINE NEWS EXPERIENCE








Dependency Relations and Online News Experience: Predicting 
Online Readings of News, International News and National News
Jin Yang
Doctoral Student
College of Mass Communication & Media Arts
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL 62901
(618) 453-3273
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Submitted for presentation review to the AEJMC 2002 Annual Conference, Miami Beach, FL. August 7-10.

Dependency Relations and Online News Experience: Predicting
Online Readings of News, International News and National News

Abstract
This study examined the extent to which online news experience can be predicted from the perspective of dependency relations after controlling for demographics and perceived credibility of Internet news. Generally, the survey findings demonstrated the power of Internet Dependency Relations in accounting for online news experience. Specifically, the intensity of Internet Dependency Relations is found to be a strong predictor for onlto generalize the findings to general population. In fact, the sample may have more well-educated individuals than general population because of the sampling of university members. Second, Internet is a changing medium in terms of content and technology. Therefore the IDR found today may not hold true for tomorrow. The changeable nature of the Internet makes it essential to do some longitudinal study to have a fuller understanding of the development of individuals-Internet relation and its predictivity of online news reading. 
However, Media System Dependency theory provides a very useful conceptual framework to explore individual-Internet relations. It is the relational aspect that strengthens and improves the explanation of news usage after controlling for demographics and attitudinal variables. It is possible an exploratory model be built after further research confirmation of the findings. And more ambitious research can be ventured and executed by utilizing the powerful tool of IDR to make cross-culture and cross-country comparisons in news or media analysis. 


Table 1
Means of  Internet Dependency Relations and Perceived Credibility of Internet News
			  Overall		Faculty		Service	  Students		Staff	Others
IDR	***			2.9		 	 2.6			2.8			3.4			3.0		3.1

Social
Understanding	3.3			3.1			3.3			3.6			3.2		3.0

Self*
Understanding	2.4			2.2			2.4			2.8			2.5		2.7

Interaction***	2.7			2.3			2.6			3.1			2.7		3.3
Action*			3.4			3.3			3.1			3.7			3.5		3.3

Social**
Play			2.7			2.3			2.5			3.3			2.7		3.1

Solitary***
Play			3.1			2.4			4.0			2.8			3.0		3.7
Perceived
Credibility		3.5			3.4			3.5			3.4			3.6		3.6

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
					


Table 2
Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Online Reading of News on Intensity of IDR After Controlling for Demographics and Perceived Credibility
(standardized regression coefficients: beta)

Predictors							Block 1			Block 2			Block3 
Status								-.062			-.084			-.105
Ethnics								-.050			-.056			-.012
Income								-.140			-.152			-.150
Age									-.225*			-.182			-.077
Gender								-.025			-.007			-.004
Education							.112				.118				.159
			
Credibility											.209*			.125
							                        
IDR Intensity														.343**


R2									.081				.123				.209
Adjusted R2							.034				.070				.154
R2 Change							.081				.042				.086
Sig. Of Change						.124				.021				.001

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001


Table 3
Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Online Reading of News on Scopes of IDR After Controlling for Demographics and Perceived Credibility
(standardized regression coefficients: beta)
Predictors							Block 1			Block 2			Block3 
Status								-.062			-.084			-.089
Ethnics								-.050			-.056			.002
Income								-.140			-.152			-.202
Age									-.225			-.182			-.076
Gender								-.025			-.007			-.006
Education							.112				.118				.158
			
Credibility											.209*			.102
							                        
Social Understanding													.216*
Self-understanding													.054
Action																-.018
Interaction															-.168
Social Play															.384**
Solitary Play															.001

R2									.081				.123				.274
Adjusted R2							.034				.070				.187
R2 Change							.081				.042				.151
Sig. Of Change						.124				.021				.002

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001


Table 4
Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Online Reading of International News on Intensity of IDR After Controlling for Demographics and Perceived Credibility
(standardized regression coefficients: beta)

Predictors							Block 1			Block 2			Block3 
Status								.042				.025				.077
Ethnics								-.146			-.150			-.113
Income								-.011			-.020			-.018
Age									-.039			-.005			.084
Gender								-.085			-.070			-.068
Education							.078				.082				.177
			
Credibility											.166				.094
							                        
IDR Intensity														.292**


R2									.040				.066				.129
Adjusted R2							-.009			.009				.068
R2 Change							.040				.026				.062
Sig. Of Change						.563				.076				.005

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001

Table 5
Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Online Reading of International News on Scopes of IDR After Controlling for Demographics and Perceived Credibility
(standardized regression coefficients: beta)
Predictors							Block 1			Block 2			Block3 
Status								.042				.025				.018
Ethnics								-.146			-.150			-.083
Income								-.011			-.020			-.059
Age									-.039			-.005			-.003
Gender								-.085			-.070			-.089
Education							.078				.082				.207
			
Credibility											.166				.056
							                        
Social Understanding													.437***
Self-understanding													.360**
Action																-.223*
Interaction															-.196
Social Play															.106
Solitary Play															-.076

R2									.040				.066				.319
Adjusted R2							-.009			.009				.238
R2 Change							.040				.026				.253
Sig. Of Change						.563				.076				.000

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001

Table 6
Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Online Reading of National News on Intensity of IDR After Controlling for Demographics and Perceived Credibility
(standardized regression coefficients: beta)

Predictors							Block 1			Block 2			Block3 
Status								.005				-.025			-.046
Ethnics								-.121			-.129			-.085
Income								.076				.060				.062
Age									-.094			-.034			.070
Gender								-.108			-.082			-.079
Education							-.140			-.133			-.092
			
Credibility											.293	**			.210*
							                        
IDR Intensity														.342**


R2									.055				.136				.222
Adjusted R2							.006				.084				.167
R2 Change							.055				.082				.085
Sig. Of Change						.355				.001				.001

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001

Table 7
Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Online Reading of National News on Scopes of IDR After Controlling for Demographics and Perceived Credibility
(standardized regression coefficients: beta)
Predictors							Block 1			Block 2			Block3 
Status								.005				-.025			-.032
Ethnics								-.121			-.129			-.053
Income								.076				.060				.010
Age									-.094			-.034			.007
Gender								-.108			-.082			-.108
Education							-.140			-.133			-.008
			
Credibility											.293	**			.183*
							                        
Social Understanding													.536***
Self-understanding													.328**
Action																-.151
Interaction															-.161
Social Play															-.004
Solitary Play															-.044

R2									.055				.136				.453
Adjusted R2							.006				.084				.388
R2 Change							.055				.082				.317
Sig. Of Change						.355				.001				.000

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001


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Appendix 
Internet Dependency Relation Scale

In your daily life, how useful is the Internet to....
(Five point scale from not at all helpful to very helpful)
Self understanding
Gain insight into why you do some of the things you do
Imagine what you'll be like when you grow older
Observe how others cope with problems or situations like yours

Social understanding
Stay on top of what is happening in the community
Find out how the country is doing
Keep up with world events

Action Orientation
Decide where to go for services such as health, financial, or household
Figure out what to buy
Plan where to go for evening and weekend activities

Interaction Orientation
Discover better ways to communicate with others
Think about how to act with friends, relatives, or people you work with
Get ideas about how to approach others in important or difficult situations

Solitary Play
Unwind after a hard day or week
Relax when you are by yourself
Have something to do when nobody else is around

Social Play
Give you something to do with your friends
Have fun with family or friends
Be a part of events you enjoy without having to be there

Scale on Perceived Credibility of Internet News 
Please indicate your opinion of the Internet news from "very believable" to "not all believable" 

Believability
Fairness
Accuracy
In-depth Information
Dependency Relations and Online News Experience 1