Abandoning traditional news? Examining factors influencing the displacement effects of online news on traditional news media

This study examined time and functional displacement effects of online news on use of traditional news media, based on two theoretical approaches to media use and effects: media substitution and uses & gratifications theories. The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether online news is displacing or supplementing traditional news. Based on an online survey, this study examined how and why politically Interested Internet user use and access online news media for political information and the consequent effect on changes in time spent with traditional news media since using online news. Given that the Internet empowers news users to have more control over the process of news selection, the different patterns of individual news consumption and perception, such as reliance, interactive use, motivations, and credibility of online news, were considered the potential factors that predict the perceived displacement levels of use of traditional news media.; This study suggests that online news sites may be either a substitute for or a complement to traditional media. Mainstream and portal news sites had little influence on reduced time spent with network news viewing, but led to the reduced amount of time spent seeking political information from cable news programs. Also, this study demonstrates that blogs are cutting deeply into time politically interested Internet user spend seeking political information from newspapers, network and cable television news programs. The different relationships between each online news site and traditional news media could be explained by the so-called "novelty effects" of blogs and by "a supplemental information-seeking behavior" of online news audiences. The results of this study demonstrate that the media substitution phenomenon is a more complex process. Reliance, motivations, and credibility of online news emerged as more important predictors of changes in time spent with traditional news media than general use of the Internet. This study contributes to understanding a power shift in terms of primary sources of political information from traditional media to online news sources, as well as to a better theoretical understanding of the media substitution process with a more comprehensive picture of the offline news displacement levels by online news.