1. Interactive to Me – Interactive to You?
A study of use and appreciation of interactivity on Swedish newspaper web sites
Reader participation in online Respondent recruitment
Anders Olof Larsson newspapers – Is it all hype? Aftonbladet.se, Sydsvenskan.se –
Two of Sweden’s most popular online
Department of
While rather few visitors on online newspapers. 1804 respondents took
Informatics and Media
newspapers actually use the interactive part, 1343 completed (74 %)
Uppsala University features available to them, research has
indicated that indirect effects of 54 % women, mean age = 47
andersoloflarsson.se interactivity might be prevalent:
anders.larsson@im.uu.se Survey questions dealt with…
”I don’t want to - or feel the need to - Use and appreciation of interactive
participate in an online discussion or e- features, based on Chung’s typology Screenshot from sydsvenskan.se
mail the editors, but other people can, (2008, 2009):
and it’s really cool that the site offers
users that option” (Deuze, 2003) - Human – Communicate
(Chat, discussion board) Factors were used as the basis for
Based on the results of an online survey, - Human-Medium – Contribute visitor personas
this study presents a typology of (Reader blogs, upload news, pictures) Five factors extracted, 50,2 % variance
newspaper web site visitor personas - Medium – Experience explained – five personas:
(Video, audio streams, graphics)
- Medium-Human – Customize The Bystander,The Prosumer,
(Customize content, share to SNS) The Lurker,The Filter,The Critic
Sociodemographics (… and more): Take home:
- Age, education, gender, salary ”the average newspaper web site visitor
- Societal engagement could be described as jaded and
- Years online, Web-Oriented Digital uninterested in the opportunities to
Literacy (Hargittai 2005, 2009) interact”
- Frequency/Intensity of visits
Low levels of use and appreciation
Analysis Institutional respect – ”The news are
Variables for use and appreciation were untouchable”
used in factor analysis. The factors were Readers are ”slow learners” – journalists
then used as dependent variables in a too…
series of regression analyses – using
Screenshot from aftonbladet.se
sociodemographics as independent Newspaper web sites as ”more than
variables reader’s playgrounds”? (Ye, 2006)
