There is a significant trend indicating changes in engagement in terms of total news consumption time and diversity in news platforms, write Louisa Ha, Ying Xu, Liu Yang, Mohammad Abuljadail, Weiwei Jiang, of Bowling Green State University, Chen Yang, of University of Houston–Victoria, Fang Wang of Bowling Green State University and Guangxi University, Xiao Hu, of Autel Intelligent Technology Corp., Ltd., and Itay Gabay, of University of Louisville. Their recent study aimed to determine the extent of these changes in 2009–2012.

The study is based on a 4-year longitudinal analysis of social media and mobile phone users in a Midwest US market.

Results show that general population differed noticeably from college students in news engagement. There was a slow decline in total news consumption time among the general population. The use of social media and mobile phone use positively correlated with total news use time. On the other hand social media and mobile phone users were less engaged in print newspaper and television.

The article Decline in news content engagement or news medium engagement? A longitudinal analysis of news engagement since the rise of social and mobile media 2009–2012 was published online before print by Journalism. It is available online (abstract free)

Picture: Conectado by Esther Vargas, licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

Edited on 15.9.2016: Link to the article in question was added.