The document summarizes a study that examined the effects of different story formats (text, video with captions, video without captions) on mobile news. It found that participants who viewed the video versions had higher recall of the news content than those who viewed text. There were no differences in perceived credibility across conditions. Eye tracking results showed that participants spent more time looking at the top part of videos without captions compared to videos with captions.

1. Effects of Story Formats in Mobile News
Presented at the University of Georgia’s Annual Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities Symposium, 2016, ATHENS, GA
Kendall A. Trammell
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Georgia
Bartosz W. Wojdynski
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Georgia
Method RESULTSABSTRACT
Mobile devices are one of the leading ways in which media audiences are consuming news. In this study, the term
“mobile device” refers to smartphones, including the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. According to the Pew
Research Center, 90 percent of American adults own a cell phone. The increasing popularity of cell phones is
making news content more accessible to people in comparison to more traditional mediums of news
dissemination, such as newspapers, TV and desktop computers (Yu & Kong, 2015). News organizations are
developing their own strategies to cater mobile-friendly content to their audiences through mobile applications,
mobile-responsive webpages and social media. Little is known about mobile news consumption. The present
study sought to examine the effects of the presence of video and video captions in mobile news on perceived
credibility of the news content, attention to the news content, recall of news content and attitudes toward the
news content. Findings show differences between story conditions on story recall and attitudes toward the story.
Participants who viewed the video versions of the story received higher knowledge scores than participants who
viewed the text story; there are no differences when it comes to perceived credibility. Visual attention results
were analyzed from the eyetracking data.
Research Questions:
Design
Participants (N=83) took part in a single-variable, 3-level between-
subjects design (text and image story, video without caption, video
with captions). Participants viewed the content on an iPhone while
having their eye movements and fixations recorded by an eyetracker
and scene camera.
Stimulus Materials
The news story chosen for the experiment was a Vox video about the
importance of primary debates during presidential elections.
Participants in the video condition without captions viewed an 4-
minute video in which a narrator discusses the influences primary
debates have in presidential elections versus general debates. The
video clips include previous footage from primary debates as well as
infographics showing voting intention in primary election debates
versus general election debates. Conditions for participants in the
video with captions condition were the same except for the
captioning was added to the video based on the narration.
Participants in the text and image condition read a story transcribed
from the videos, which was presented alongside a still image of
Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz from
the video. The text version was edited slightly from the verbatim
transcription for grammar and to ensure the text stimulus materials
flowed properly and read as well as readers might expect from an
article written in a journalistic style.
Procedure
Participation took place in individual sessions in a university computer
lab. Participants were randomly assigned to one version of the news
story. After providing informed consent, participants filled out a brief
online questionnaire about their news consumption. Next,
participants’ eye movements were recorded and analyzed with the
mobile eyetracker and scene camera. Then, participants opened the
website icon for their randomly-assigned conditions from the phone’s
home screen. During the time in which participants viewed the story,
the eyetracker and scene camera recorded the attention of the
participants’ eyes with the indication of red dots and their movement
with red dotted lines. After viewing the story, participants completed
a questionnaire containing dependent measures, including
knowledge, attitudes, fluency and perceived credibility.
ABSTRACT
RQ1: For mobile viewers of political news, what is the relationship between story
format (text and image, video with captions, video without captions) and perceived
credibility of the news content?
RQ2: For mobile viewers of political news, what is the relationship between story
format (text and image, video with captions, video without captions) and recall of
news content?
RQ3: For mobile viewers of political news, what is the relationship between story
format (text and image, video with captions, video without captions) and attitudes
toward the news content?
RQ4: For mobile viewers of political news, what is the relationship between the
presence of captions and focus of visual attention on video news content?
RQ4: Effects on focus of visual attention on video news content
The influence of video story format on attention to video content was tested
via an independent-samples t-test comparing attention area rations between
the two story conditions that contained a video. The results showed that
participants spent a higher proportion of time on the top 2/3 of the video
content when in the no-caption condition (M= 4.76, SD=3.77) than in the
caption condition (M= 1.80, SD=1.17), t(37)=3.57, p <.01.