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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

GRATIFICATION NICHES OF MONTHLY PRINT MAGAZINES
AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB

presented by

Quint Bryce Randle

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
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Mass Media

 

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6’01 chlRC/DateOuepBS—p. 15

 

GRATIFICATION NICHES OF MONTHLY PRINT MAGAZINES
AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB

By

Quint B. Randle

AN ABSTRACT OF A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Mass Media Ph.D. Program
2001

Professor Howard Bossen

ABSTRACT

GRATIFICATION NICHES OF MONTHLY PRINT MAGAZINES
AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB

By

Quint Randle

Through the framework of niche theory, this study compared the
gratiﬁcation niches of traditional print magazines and the World Wide
Web through a random mail and convenience email sample — two sub-
samples of a population of subscribers to a special-interest print
magazine. Three hundred and seventy-one users of both mediums
responded to the survey. Relative to the Web, the presence of newer
magazine gratiﬁcation dimensions was identiﬁed as well as traditional
dimensions supported. These included surveillance, diversion, career
information, gratiﬁcation opportunities, communication management
and others. The relative array of gratiﬁcations offered (niche width),
perceived similarities (niche overlap) and superiority of each medium
were measured in total and for the individual gratiﬁcation dimensions.

For these users, the Web offers a wider array of gratiﬁcations than
magazines, and delivers them in a superior fashion. As Web use
increases, these perceptions increase as well. The greatest differences
between magazines and the Web in gratiﬁcations offered and superiority
tend to be in the cognitive, information-gathering and communication
management functions. Meanwhile, the least differences appear in the

more affective and diversionary functions.

The Web and magazines are perceived to be least similar in the
information-gathering and communication management functions. They
are perceived to be most similar in the affective, or diversionary
functions. Decreasing magazine users place more emphasis on the
superiority of the Web’s information-gathering and communication
management characteristics. Increasing and static magazine users seem
to place more emphasis on the affective functions of magazines.

Supporting the notion of a catalyst effect, increasing magazine
readers use the Internet at the same rate as decreasing magazine users,
both at a higher rate than static magazine users. Increasing and
decreasing magazine use is not driven by age, or by how long one has
been using the Internet. A key variable that seems to be driving
increasing or decreasing magazine is whether individuals prefer to
engage in these more affective functions in a tactile or electronic
environment.

Based on these ﬁndings, a number of managerial
recommendations are offered to help print magazine publishers create a
successful Web publishing model, incorporating both free and paid

content.

Copyright by
QUINT BRYCE RANDLE
2001

DEDICATION

To Leslie, my wife, and to my parents, Clayton and Betty.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to my committee members for their scholarship and
friendship: Howard Bossen, Lucinda Davenport, Hairong Li and Bonnie
Reece. Plus, appreciation to other members of the MSU mass media
doctoral community: Cheryl Pell, Darcy Greene, Bob LaRose, Steve Lacy

and Hugh Martin.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................... vii
LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................. xi
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................... xii
CHAPTER 1

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ....................................................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
Magazines and the Web ............................................................... 2
The Web and Consumer Time ...................................................... 2
Justiﬁcation ................................................................................ 4
Theoretical Framework ................................................................ 5
Purpose Statement ...................................................................... 6
Summary .................................................................................... 6

CHAPTER 2

MAGAZINES AND NEW MASS MEDIA:

AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ........................................................ 8
Introduction ................................................................................ 8
Magazines in America .................................................................. 9
Motion Pictures ......................................................................... 10
Radio ......................................................................................... 13
Sound Recordings ..................................................................... 17
Television and Video .................................................................. 19
Computers ................................................................................ 23
The Internet Threat ................................................................... 26
Conclusion ................................................................................ 3 1

CHAPTER 3

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ........................................................ 33
Introduction .............................................................................. 33
The Theory of the Niche ............................................................. 35
Concepts and Deﬁnitions ........................................................... 39

Population and community .............................................. 39
Environment. ................................................................... 39
Resource use and competition .......................................... 40
Superiority and displacement ........................................... 41
Niche breadth .................................................................. 43
Niche overlap ................................................................... 44
Niche and Gratifications ............................................................ 45

vii

Gratiﬁcation Opportunities ........................................................ 47

Niche Theory and Magazines ..................................................... 50
Subject categories ............................................................ 50
Advertising ....................................................................... 53
Gratiﬁcations ................................................................... 54

Magazine Gratiﬁcations Research .............................................. 55
Surveillance ..................................................................... 56
Interaction ....................................................................... 56
Diversion ......................................................................... 56

Magazine Dimensions and Media Choice ................................... 56

Magazine and Internet Gratiﬁcations ......................................... 58

A Niche Analogy ........................................................................ 60

Research Questions and Hypotheses ......................................... 62
Research questions. ......................................................... 62
Research hypotheses ........................................................ 63

Conclusion ................................................................................ 65

CHAPTER 4
METHOD ......................................................................................... 66

Introduction .............................................................................. 66

Definition and Operationalization of Variables ........................... 66
Niche breadth. ................................................................. 67
Niche overlap ................................................................... 67
Niche superiority .............................................................. 69
Magazine use ................................................................... 70
World Wide Web use ........................................................ 7 0
Displacement ................................................................... 7 0
Newspaper use ................................................................. 71
Access speed .................................................................... 71

Method ...................................................................................... 71

Response Rate ........................................................................... 74

Survey Instrument .................................................................... 75

Statement from Towers .............................................................. 78

Internet Statements from Chamey and Greenberg ..................... 78

Pre-survey Statements ............................................................... 79

Data Analysis ............................................................................ 83

Conclusion ................................................................................ 83

CHAPTER 5
RESULTS ........................................................................................ 84

Introduction .............................................................................. 84

Description of Sample ................................................................ 84
Gender and age ................................................................ 84

viii

Education and income ..................................................... 85

Web use ........................................................................... 86
Access speed and location ................................................ 87
Length of use ................................................................... 87
Reasons for use ................................................................ 87
Magazine use ................................................................... 88
Television and newspaper use .......................................... 88
Research Question One ............................................................. 88
Research Questions Two and Three ........................................... 89
Factor analysis ................................................................. 90

Scale construction ........................................................... 91
Research Question Four ............................................................ 97
Research Question Five ............................................................. 98
Research Question Six ............................................................. 100
Hypothesis One ....................................................................... 101
Hypothesis Two ....................................................................... 102
Subscribing to magazines ............................................... 102
Single Copy purchases ................................................... 103
Hypothesis Three ..................................................................... 104
Hypothesis Four ...................................................................... 104
Hypothesis Five ....................................................................... 105
Hypothesis Six ......................................................................... 105
Hypothesis Seven .................................................................... 106
Hypothesis Eight ..................................................................... 106
Conclusion .............................................................................. 107

CHAPTER 6

DISCUSSION ................................................................................. 108
Introduction ............................................................................ 108
Research Question One ........................................................... 108
Research Question Two and Three ........................................... 110
Research Question Four .......................................................... 113
Research Question Five ........................................................... 114
Research Question Six ............................................................. 116
Hypothesis One ....................................................................... 116
Hypothesis Two ....................................................................... 117
Hypotheses Three and Four ..................................................... 119
Hypotheses Five and Six .......................................................... 121
Hypotheses Seven .................................................................... 122
Hypothesis Eight ..................................................................... 123
Post Analysis ........................................................................... 123
Summary of Findings .............................................................. 126
Managerial Implications .......................................................... 128

Added dimensions of the Web ......................................... 128

The lure of print ............................................................. 129
Where they overlap ......................................................... 131
Contribution to Communications Theory ................................. 134
Weaknesses of the Study ......................................................... 135
Suggestions for Future Research ............................................. 137
APPENDIX A
Print Version of Survey and Associated Materials ........................... 141
APPENDIX B
Web Version of Survey and Associated Materials ........................... 152
REFERENCES ............................................................................... 158

LIST OF TABLES

1. Traditional magazine gratiﬁcations from Payne et al .................... 77
2. Traditional magazine gratiﬁcations from Towers .......................... 78
3. Internet gratiﬁcations from Chamey and Greenberg ................... 79
4. Magazine-Internet statements collected in pre-survey .................. 82
5. Dimension: Surveillance /Keeping informed ................................. 93
6. Dimension: Eye candy ................................................................. 93
7. Dimension: Diversion .................................................................. 94
8. Dimension: Self-actualization ...................................................... 94
9. Dimension: Communication/ Interaction ...................................... 95
10. Dimension: Career/Job ............................................................. 95
11. Dimension: Gratiﬁcation opportunities ...................................... 96
12. Niche breadth for the Web and magazines ................................. 98
13. Niche overlap for the Web and magazines .................................. 99
14. Niche superiority values and T-tests for Web and magazines.... 100
15. Correlations between Internet use and Internet niche

width, overlap and competitive superiority on

individual gratiﬁcation dimensions .......................................... 102
16. Correlations between magazine subscriptions and

total magazine niche width, overlap and competitive

superiority on gratiﬁcation dimensions .................................... 103
17. Correlations between single copy purchases and total

magazine niche width, overlap and competitive
superiority on gratiﬁcation dimensions .................................... 104

18.

19.

20.

21

Means of increasing and decreasing magazine

users for niche measures ......................................................... 105
Means of heavier newspaper readers and lesser
readers for magazine niche measures ...................................... 106

Means of decreasing, increasing and static magazine
users for total niche measures ................................................ 120

Percentage of medium superiority scores matching

self-assessed use patterns of decreasing, increasing
and static magazine use since adoption of the Web .................. 124

xii

LIST OF FIGURES

1. Regional magazine launches and US. television households ........ 54

2. Levels of decreasing, increasing and static magazine
use of World Wide Web users. ...................................................... 89

xiii

CHAPTER 1

Statement of the Problem

Introduction

With the popularity and interactivity offered by the Internet and
World Wide Web, media organizations see the Web as a medium they
must conquer if they are going to survive. They have good reason to be
concerned. From an historical perspective, whenever a new medium
reaches critical mass it threatens to, and does, displace existing media to
some degree. For example, the upstart television industry took
consumers and advertisers away from the radio industry back in the
19405 and 19508. The revolution of special-interest niche magazines
began back in the early 19708 when the magazine industry reacted to the
loss of national advertising and eventual failure of mass circulation,
general interest magazines due to the increasing use of television by both
consumers and advertisers (Gage, 1982; van Zuilen, 1977).

But what makes the World Wide Web so different from, and more
threatening than, previous introductions of new media is that it offers,
and will increasingly offer as bandwidth increases, all three
“personalities” that used to distinguish mass media from one another —
print, audio and video. For example, Web-based information providers
especially threaten conventional newspapers because they can deliver
text and images more quickly and in a more organized manner than
print. With the immediacy of broadcast media, Web technology can
distribute what is in essence the printed page.

Magazines and the Web
Magazines, however, face somewhat different issues than

newspapers because they have not historically been the deliverers of

1

timely information. They face competition from Internet-only e-zines,
which have virtually no traditional paper, printing or distribution costs,
and are better versed in new media interactivity. Because of this they are
able to serve even more specialized vertical communities — a function
similar to today’s special interest and trade magazines. Magazines also
face the television and radio industries’ entry into the text-based medium
now available through the Internet. In sum, the 4—color, text-based
medium that magazines used to “own” has in many ways become
available to virtually anyone with Web technology.

As a competitive threat, the Web can be perceived in two ways.
First as simply another mass information or entertainment medium
competing for consumer time — a relatively constrained resource. But
the Web is also threatening because it can replace or serve the same
speciﬁc functions as traditional magazines.
The Web and Consumer Time

In the last several years, the number of Internet users has hit
critical mass. According to “The UCLA Internet Report: Surveying the
Digital Future,” nearly 70% of Americans are using the Internet. (Cole,
2000). An Internet ratings company, the Nielsen / / Netratings Audience
Measurement Service (sister company to television’s Nielsen ratings),
estimates that in December 2000 there were nearly 160 million US.
residents living in households with Internet access (2001b).

Web surﬁng was the top activity of the respondents in the UCLA
report, with just over 80 percent using the Internet for Web browsing
(beating out email by less than one percent). Subjects reported using the

Internet for ﬁnding hobby and entertainment information, as well as

reading news. These functions are associated with the traditional use of
magazines and newspapers.

Internet studies have tended to ﬁnd that Internet users generally
employ more media than non-users (Cole, 2000), but several studies
have shown that those reporting less magazine use overall, outnumber
those reporting more magazine use since becoming a Web user (Stempel,
Hargrove, 81. Bemt, 2000; FIND /SVP, 1997). Another recent study, that
did not address magazines speciﬁcally, found that time spent watching
TV and reading newspapers decreased as online use increased, pointing
to a displacement effect (Kayany 8t Yelsma, 2000).

Meanwhile, magazine publishers are trying to ﬁnd ways to best
capitalize on the Internet without cannibalizing their own readers and
advertisers (Marlatt, 2001; Woodard, 2001). According to a survey in
Folio Magazine, a leading trade publication, 54.5 percent of the sampled
magazine professionals feel that the integration of print and digital media
is a top issue facing the industry — second only to circulation economics
(Folio, 2001).

And while the same survey reported that respondents were feeling
less threatened by the Internet for advertising market share than the
previous year, more respondents believed they were losing their readers’
time to the Internet:

There’s no doubt that the Internet’s popularity as an information

provider has soared. In 1999, 23.7 percent of publishers

maintained that their magazines were not losing any reader time to
the Web. In 2000, that conﬁdence level dropped 17.6 percentage
points, with only 6.1 percent of respondents still sure that their

readers were not being lured away by the Web. (Folio, 2001, p. 51)
3

Justiﬁcation

“The trick,” for print media as offered by one author, is to excite
readers’ interest in “print products through glamour and added
dimensions of the Web without losing the lure of print” (Villano, 1999).
This sounds like a logical solution, but leads to several important
questions: What exactly are the added dimensions of the Web? What
comprises the continuing lure of the print? And how do they overlap? In
short, what are the strengths of the print medium that magazine
publishers need to focus on, while at the same time capitalizing on the
strengths of the Web medium?

These are some of the general questions this study sets out to
answer through a review of the literature, subsequent research
questions, hypotheses and survey of magazine readers. For magazine
publishers to ﬁnd their competitive place among the new and traditional
media, they must better understand how the two mediums compete and

how they might complement each other.

This study explores one of the most important issues facing today’s
magazine industry: Can the Web fulﬁll the same gratiﬁcation needs
previously offered by magazines? On what gratiﬁcations do magazines
excel over the Web and vice versa? Rather than analyzing circulation
trends and advertising sales ﬁgures, this study directly addresses the
end user. Ultimately, individual consumers — minute by minute, hour by
hour — will decide the relative popularity of both magazines and the Web
through how and how often they use them.

This study, and how it will be executed, is signiﬁcant because it
may detect relatively early tendencies for readers to prefer one medium

over the other, and speciﬁcally along what dimensions of use. These

4

preferences may not play out into circulation declines for a number of
years. By identifying speciﬁc gratiﬁcations, strengths and weaknesses, of
these two mediums relative to one another, publishers will be better
prepared to make long-term editorial and strategic business decisions.
Through a better understanding of the added dimensions of the Web —
and more speciﬁcally — what differentiates magazines from the Web and
vice-versa, conventional magazine publishers will be better prepared to
compete beyond the new millennium.

Theoretical Framework

Niche theory provides an appropriate framework to examine to
what degree these media compete at a functional level for audience
attention. Originally based in population ecology, niche theory explains
how animal populations compete for resources within a deﬁned
environment and can provide general predictions as to the potential for
cohabitation or extinction (Stiling, 1999; Arthur, 1987; Whitaker 8r. Levin,
1975). It has been borrowed and adapted to a variety of ﬁelds including
marketing (Li 8s Kuo, 2000; Lambkin, 1990) and the media (Dimmick,
Patterson, 85 Albarran, 1992; Dimmick 8s Rothenbuhler, 1984). For
example, in terms of the media, niche theory has been used to explain
the effect on advertising revenues of new media — television — invading
the environment of old media — radio (Dimmick 8r. Rothenbuhler, 1984).

Other studies have utilized the theory of the niche, combined with
measurement and factor analysis methodologies of the uses and
gratiﬁcations perspective (Blumler 8:. Katz, 1974), to measure consumer
gratiﬁcations of new and old media. The ﬁrst phase is to identify and
measure the various dimensions of gratiﬁcations. The data are then
analde utilizing theory of the niche formulae to calculate the breadth of

5

a medium’s niche (range of use), overlap of media use (to what degree
they fulﬁll the same needs), and to ascertain competitive strengths and
weaknesses from the perspective of individual gratiﬁcations. This helps
identify which medium is more effective and in what areas ( Dimmick,
Kline, 85 Stafford, 2000; Dimmick, 1993). This study follows a similar
pattern, comparing the gratiﬁcation niches of conventional magazine use
to those of the World Wide Web.
Purpose Statement

The purpose of this study is to use niche theory to measure and
then make general predictions as to the potential for competition and
displacement between two media populations: traditional print
magazines and World Wide Web sites. Niche theory suggests that when
competition is high in a resource-ﬁxed environment, and one population
is superior to the other, one population will be displaced to some degree
or another. The displaced population must adjust its resource use in
order to survive. This study surveyed magazine and Internet users to
assess the level of competition and superiority in the area of
gratiﬁcations, a key predictor of audience attention and use. A
secondary purpose is to examine the effect of several independent
variables — level of use, type of media, demographics and others — on
several dependent, niche-oriented variables — breadth, overlap and
superiority.
M

In conclusion, the goal of this paper is to identify the strengths and
weaknesses of the Web and print magazines relative to one another on
speciﬁc dimensions of gratiﬁcations. It addresses the potential effect of

the availability of new media, more speciﬁcally Internet Web sites, on the

6

reading habits of magazine readers or subscribers. This chapter has
provided a basic overview of the study.

Prior to a theoretical literature review, an historical overview of the
impact of earlier new media on magazine publishing is presented. The
purpose of this is to provide more context and perspective on today’s new
media environment and the study at hand. In the literature review,
Chapter 3, the theory of the niche will be explained and related concepts,
deﬁnitions and studies highlighted. The theoretical construct of media
gratiﬁcations will also be examined, because use statements are utilized
as a measurement tool in audience-oriented niche studies.

At the conclusion of the literature review, six research questions
and eight hypotheses are presented. Chapter 4 then gives the
methodology used to execute the study. In addition to using somewhat
established magazine and Internet use statements, a qualitative pre-
survey was conducted to collect newer use statements relative to both
mediums.

Then, 371 special interest magazine subscribers and Internet users (of
the same magazine) were sampled to take a self-report questionnaire.
The results of the research questions and statistical analysis are
presented in Chapter 5, which is then followed by a discussion of the
implications of the ﬁndings, the study’s weaknesses and suggestions for

future research in Chapter 6.

 

 

CHAPTER 2
Magazines and New Mass Media: An Historical Perspective
Introduction

Before launching into a review of the literature directly related to
niche theory and gratiﬁcations, this chapter provides an historical
overview of the effects of new mass media on magazine publishing in the
United States. Some of industry’s major developments and trends are
examined in light of the introductions of new mass media. Within the
framework of this study, new‘media are considered new forms of mass
communication or entertainment media that threaten to take readers or
advertisers away from magazines.

The major mass media types that have been introduced since the
beginning of the 20th Century include motion pictures, the phonograph
record, radio, television, the personal computer, video cassettes, video
games and the Internet. Some of these media introductions have had
major negative impacts on magazines: television stealing readers and
advertisers resulting in the eventual extinction of the general interest,
mass circulation magazines in the late 1960s and early 19708 (van
Zuilen, 1977). Conversely, the births of other new media have had
positive effects on the magazine industry. For example, the growing
penetration and popularity of the personal computer during the 19808
motivated millions of information-hungry readers and special-interest
advertisers. Each introduction of a new brand of personal computer or
even model number was followed immediately (or concurrently) by the
launch of several competitive magazine titles in the 19808 (Maryles,

1983; NY. Times, 1983, Nov. 9).

Each time a new medium is introduced it does threaten to and
displace existing media to some degree or another (Dimmick 8r.
Rothenbuhler, 1984). An historical perspective on both the perceived
threats at their introduction, and the general effects of new media on
magazines throughout this century will provide a better understanding
as the current media landscape —— the potential effect of the Web on
magazine publishing — is explored.

M_aga_zines in America

Magazines have been a part of American culture since American
Magazine was ﬁrst published in colonial America (Paneth 85 Facts on File
Inc., 1983). By 1825 there were an estimated 100 magazines being
published. This ﬁgure grew to more than 600 in 1850, with another four
or ﬁve thousand titles having come and gone during that 25-year span
(Schmidt, 1980). But even with such popularity, magazines were
considered a medium of leisure. As Peterson outlines:

So long as people were preoccupied with earning a living and

pushing back the frontier, so long as leisure and literacy were not

widespread, so long as transportation was rudimentary and

uncertain, magazines lived precariously. (Peterson, 1980, p. 166)

Until the end of the 18808 these magazines relied primarily on
subscription revenues or the wealth of their publishers to cover
expenses. “A publisher started a magazine because he had something to
say” (Bart, 1962, p. 32). Money was not the main motivation: “Magazines,
except for a few local publications or trade papers, seldom contained
advertisements” (Douglas, 1991, p. 15). Even so, the post-Civil war
economic boom saw the number of magazines being published jump

from 700 in 1865 to 3,300 in 1885 (Peterson, 1980).
9

Towards the end of the 19th Century, due to the mass production
of consumer products and the evolution of brand names, “the modern
magazine arose in the 18908 as a handmaiden of the marketing system
New products were appearing in profusion” (Peterson, 1980, p. 166).
Publishers began to realize that magazines could be a vehicle to
showcase merchandise, not just ideas (Bart, 1962). By 1900 major
advertisers were pouring money into all of the popular magazines
(Douglas, 1991).

With the turn of the century also came increasing technological
advances as well as more leisure time for Americans, both of which
would bolster the popularity of magazines. For example:

By the early 19008 the physical appearance of magazines was

transformed by the new dry-plate processes by which pictures, line

drawings and photographs could be printed as half-tones...

Widespread use of this process followed, with the increased

opportunity for magazines to become designed objects, not merely

collections of type with occasional woodcuts or steel engravings.

(Schmidt, 1980, p. 11)

While black and white photography played a prominent role, four-
color printing would be commercially viable soon. National Geographic
was publishing four-color editorial as early as 1910 (Edkins, 1978). At
this time, newspapers and books were the main competitors of
magazines (Peterson, 1956). But a new mass medium was on the horizon
— one that did not require reading.

Motion Pictures
The three mass media competitors at this stage of development

were all text-based: newspapers, books and magazines. The ﬁrst new

10

mass medium to affect magazines was ﬁlm, which entered the realm of
mass media in 1904 as The Great Train Robbery drew in moviegoers. The
proliferation of movie magazines began around 1911 and continued into
the 19408 (Peterson, 1956). “Magazines for movie fans began to appear
when motion pictures moved from the shady atmosphere of the
nickelodeon into grand houses of their own.... Throughout the twenties,
thirties and forties, new titles were forever appearing on newsstands”
(Peterson, 1956, p. 281-282).

In 1922, average weekly movie attendance was 40 million with an
average weekly household attendance of 1.56. This continued to grow
until weekly attendance peaked out at 90 million in 1948 with an
average weekly household attendance of 2.22 (Salvaggio 85 Bryant, 1989).

But because the ﬁlm industry relied solely on consumer ticket
purchases for revenues, not on advertising income as well, the economic
impact on magazines was not necessarily a negative one. While ticket
costs and the recreational time required to attend motion pictures did eat
away at leisure dollars and hours, the new medium spurred an interest
in movie stars’ lives both on and off the screen. These publications
“satisﬁed the public curiosity about what was happening during the
golden age of Hollywood” (Tebbel, 1969, p. 239-240).

One early readership study showed some empirical evidence of a
complementary relationship between movies and magazines. In this effort
to examine environmental factors affecting readership, the authors
(Lazarsfeld 85 Wyant, 1937) compared the circulation of 25 leading
magazines in 90 US. cities with seven geographic and socioeconomic
variables, including occupational structure, educational expenditures

and the number of movie houses in a city.

11

They ﬁrst established that large populations were associated with
lower readership levels, perhaps because “larger cities offer a greater
number of diversiﬁed amusements” (p. 33). But the authors then found a
moderate positive relationship (; = .38 being the only statistic reported)
between the number of movie houses in a city and the readership
variable. They concluded, “Clearly, a rise in the number of movies results
in an increase in reading interest” (p. 34).

In further analysis of the circulations of speciﬁc magazines, they
reported a particularly strong positive relationship between the number
of theaters in a city and the circulation of Red Book magazine. “One
possible reason for this correlation is that the type of story in Red Book is
especially similar to the type of story portrayed on the screen” (p. 38).
This study supports the idea that sometimes-similar subject matter
creates a complementary effect between media, rather than a
displacement effect.

Between 1911 and 1938 alone, 60 consumer magazines and nearly
90 trade and in-house publications were founded that addressed the
subject of ﬁlms, cinema, movie stars and production (Lomazow, 1996).
Some of the more memorable startups of the ﬁrst half of the 20th Century
included Photoplay (1911), Picture Play (1915), Screen Play (1925), Screen
Romances (1929), Movie Life (1937) and Movieland (1942) (Peterson,
1956). Thus, a whole new category was created and numerous magazines
were launched to satisfy the appetite of the millions of fans of this new
sensation called Hollywood and the business and industry that
accompanied it. ,

Today there are not nearly as many speciﬁc movie star magazines

being published; average weekly movie attendance is approximately a

12

third of what it was at its peak in the 19408 (Salvaggio 85 Bryant, 1989).
But the public’s seemingly unending interest in stars and the intimate
details of their lives is reﬂected in the large circulations of many leading
consumer magazines. People Weekly (4.1 million), Teen People, (1.6
million), Rolling Stone (1.2 million), Us (1 million) and leading women’s
magazines all rely heavily on reader interest in the stars produced by
movies and the media-infatuated popular culture. Today, the leading

general circulation magazine devoted solely to the movies is Premiere with

0 5:15:51

a circulation just more than 600,000 (ABC, 2001). However, there are

I:
1

still many other smaller circulation titles covering different facets of the
movies and its trades.
Rel—dig

After the entrance of the motion picture as a competitive threat to
magazines, the next new medium to enter the marketplace was radio.
Prior to the advent of ﬁlm “talkies,” the ﬁrst radio station with
commercial sponsors and programming went on the air in Pittsburgh,
towards the end of 1920 (van Zuilen, 1977).

Unlike motion pictures, this new mass medium relied on consumer
time and advertising sponsor revenues. Radio grew rapidly in popularity,
with NBC forming the ﬁrst formal network in 1926 (Salvaggio 85 Bryant,
1989). The organization of network radio brought a greater competitive
threat to magazines:

By the late twenties, radio was rapidly becoming an important

competitor for advertising appropriations; the gross advertising

carried by the networks jumped from $4,000,000 in 1927 to
$10,000,000 in 1928 to $19,000,000 in 1929. Magazines
recognized the threat; the Saturday Evening Post ran many articles

13

about stage and screen but paid the scantiest of editorial attention

to radio. (Peterson, 1956, p. 29)

Leading magazine publishers went so far as to seek the advice of
university faculty because they were concerned about the loss of
advertising to radio as well as the effects of the Great Depression
(Peterson, 1980). Similar to the answer they might get today, the answer
they got then was not surprisingly to improve their editorial focus and
quality.

Radio reached its “Golden Age” during the 19308 when by 1934
half of the homes in the US. had radios (Media History Project, 2001). By
1940 there were more than 28 million households with radios, a
penetration of just more than 80% (Salvaggio 85 Bryant, 1989). But while
radio was reaching high penetration levels, publishers began capitalizing
on new print technologies that would enhance what they could offer both
readers and advertisers. This was something they would grow to rely on
and would differentiate magazines from competing media for the next
several decades:

full-color photographic reproduction in the 308 started a new

era of general magazine publishing In the Nov. 15, 1931 issue of

Vogue, they made color history with a sensational color

photography [sic] of fruit and silver.... From this time on Vogue

enhanced its page with color, including during the Depression.

(Edkins, 1978, p. 104)

The speciﬁc impact of the radio medium was apparently not
substantial because by the mid—308, “... publishers saw that radio was
not eating into their share of total advertising appropriations” (Peterson,

l956,p.30)

14

However, radio was still a threat to magazines, capable of taking
away national advertising accounts. There was also the Great Depression
to deal with. Perhaps because of these threats, and the fact that radio
was not a visual medium, it was not embraced with numerous magazine
launches in the same way ﬁlm and Hollywood were embraced. Even so
there was a “ready market for magazines carrying radio program
schedules as long as many newspapers refused to list such schedules
because of their feud with the new medium” (Peterson, 1956, p. 283). For
example, with 17 regional editions, Annenberg’s Radio Guide sold
420,000 in 1936.

While the further development of printing technology certainly
played its part (Edkins, 1978), it is interesting to note the relatively
parallel timeline of the peaking popularity of radio and the emergence of
the picture magazine. Picture magazines and general interest titles would
drive the industry well into the 19608. The picture magazine can also be
seen as a competitive response to radio’s popularity among consumers.
Radio was not a visual medium and could never become such. However,
magazines were and could tell stories through pictures — large and
small. Thus, as a medium, magazines altered their content, creating a
new category — the picture magazine. As Peterson explains:

...the ‘308 belonged to the picture magazine. Anticipating the

visual world of television, it surpassed even the condensations of

the news weeklies and digest by summarizing in photographs
instead of in text. So many picture magazines sprouted up in the
mid-thirties that Scribner’s entitled an article about them “One

Every Minute.” Their inﬂuences, especially the inﬂuences of Life

15

and Look, permeated the whole of American journalism. (Peterson,

1980,p.168)

In 1977, Susan Sontag in On Photography offered one reason why
photographs had such an impact on the American public, and in turn,
on the popularity of the picture magazine: “A photograph passes for
incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may
distort; but there is always the presumption that something exists, or did
exist, which is like what’s in the picture” (Sontag, 1977, p. 5).

While there were forerunners, the culmination of technological and
competitive forces saw the launches of the two major picture magazines:
Life in 1936, which was selling more than 1 million copies within just a
few weeks of its introduction, and Look in 1937, which was selling 1.7
million copies before its ﬁrst anniversary. There were a host of others,
too. Click, which emphasized sex and shock, reached a circulation of 1.6
million. Focus, Pic, Photo-history, Peek, Foto, and Picture were just some
of the other short- and long-lived titles that began or re-conceptualized in
the 19308. Ideas for picture magazines were so prevalent that one trade
paper remarked, “... every advertising man carried a dummy for a picture
magazine in his pocket” (Peterson, 1956, p. 313-314)

Today, all types of magazines use the radio airwaves to support
subscription campaigns and single copy sales (Hovey, 1991). They have
also found success in partnering with radio stations and networks to
produce short audio segments highlighting the general or speciﬁc content
of a magazine. Said one publisher: “It would be prohibitively expensive
for us to buy this extensive kind of radio time.... It’s a great way to give
people a sense of the information that we provide in our issues” (Staff,

1997,p.18L
16

Sound Recordings

Another aural medium, the phonograph record, began its
commercial ascent in the 19108. But “beginning in 1922 , radio
interrupted the progress of the phonograph industry, and sales of both
players and records dropped 50% by 1924 over the previous year”
(Salvaggio 85 Bryant, 1989, p. 279). The impact of the World Wars and a
musicians strike also stunted its growth. The phonograph record —
which would eventually lead to other forms of sound recordings such as
magnetic tape, compact discs and digital media — did not really take off
until the late 19408 when the 331/3 long-playing record (LP) and 45-rpm
were introduced (Salvaggio 85 Bryant, 1989). High Fidelity, which
launched in 1951, was the ﬁrst US. magazine to address readers who
didn’t exist before 1940 — audiophiles (Nourie 85 Nourie, 1990).

“Recordings have, since their beginning, complemented and
ampliﬁed many areas of publishing” (Brook, 197 7, p. 72). The sound
recording medium affected magazine publishing in much the same way
ﬁlm did. It was an entertainment medium that relied solely on consumer
purchases, and did not rely on advertising. It was not as threatening as
the radio medium. (But sound recordings were threatening to radio.) As
the number of phonographs being shipped each year reached the million-
mark in the early 19508, the interest in music stars (and instruments)
spawned new titles and eventually a new category of magazines.

In 1943, the N .W. Ayer directory listed only eight magazines in the
music category, including Song Hits with a circulation nearly 450,000
(Sons, 1943). By 1970, the number of music magazine titles had grown
to 32, including Hit Paraderwith a circulation of 216,575 (Sons, 1970).

Rolling Stone, which was launched in 1967, quickly became a social,

17

political and cultural voice of a generation. By 1976 the magazine had a
bi-weekly circulation of 500,000 (Nourie 85 Nourie, 1990). Today, with a
circulation of 1.2 million (ABC, 2001), Rolling Stone appeals to both the

younger music fan as well as the aging baby boomer.

According to one source, there are nearly 60 magazines being
published in the music category today, not including trade magazines
(S.R.D.S., 2001). But there are even more music titles according to the
National Directory of Magazines Over a 10-year span from 1989 to 1999,
the music and music trades category was rated the third-fastest growing
category in magazine publishing. There were 286 titles in 1989. By 1999
that number had risen to 519 (M.P.A., 2001a). And another source shows
new music magazine launches in the Top 20 in 1999 (Husni, 1999). (The
Magazine Publishers of America notes that there are a number of
directories and sources that provide the number of magazines in the US.
market, some more comprehensive than others. These include National
Directory of Magazines, Standard Rate and Data Service, Audit Bureau of
Circulations, BPA International, and the Publishers Information Bureau
(M.P.A., 2001b).)

In addition to a heathly number of music titles today, roles have
even reversed with publishers and record companies partnering to
produce CD8 targeted at readers of their magazines. A growing number of
magazines - including major titles such as Good Housekeeping and
Esquire — have licensed their names to record labels, producing CD8
ﬁlled with songs that relate to their magazines (Beam, 1995). Said one VP
of magazine brand development, “It’s not going to make you a millionaire,

but it’s good for your magazine and good for your readers” (p. 32).

18

Television and Video

By the 19408, the general interest, mass circulation magazines
(with and without an emphasis on pictures) were well established. These
include Life, Look, Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post and others.
National magazines, with circulations in the millions, were an important
part of national advertising strategies of virtually all major brand name
products. In 1946 magazines held 12.6% of the total advertising market
share (van Zuilen, 1977).

It was earlier that decade when television began its diffusion into
US. households, but network television did not begin until 1949 (Media
History Project, 2001). By 1956, television penetration reached 71.8%
with 35 million sets (van Zuilen, 1977 ). As outlined by Dimmick 85
Rothenbuhler (1984), the growth in television advertising market share
caused a serious drop in national radio advertising sales. Radio adjusted
to this threat by focusing on local and regional advertising sales.
Meanwhile, magazine publishers perhaps did not feel immediately
threatened because in its ﬁrst incarnation television did not offer 4-color
advertising.

General interest consumer magazines continued to ﬂourish
throughout the 19508 and into the early 19608. But as the cost of four
color television sets decreased, and television’s overall penetration went
up — 97% by 1969 — the economic ride the general interest and picture
magazines had enjoyed came to end. The immediacy and emotional
depth of color television displaced the four-color general interest and
picture magazines. By as early as 1956 television had 12.2 % of total
advertising market share, while magazine advertising market share had

dropped to 8% (van Zuilen, 1977 ).
19

As will be highlighted later, advertising-oriented theory of the niche
studies have not included magazines due to the way advertising sales
were tracked over the decades. But the effect that television had on the
magazine industry has been noted by a number of authors and was
made evident by the decline of the general interest magazines:

No competitor ever gave publishers as many fretful hours as

television, which grew rapidly in the postwar boom. Expenditures

on television advertising — network, spot, and local — climbed
from virtually nothing in the late 19408 to more than $1.7 billion
in 1963... When magazine proﬁts declined in the late 19508 and
early 19608, many observers were quick to blame the trouble on

television. (Peterson, 1964, p. 24)

Through the marketing concept of “Product Life Cycle” van Zuilen
(1977) thoroughly examined the economics of the rise and fall of the
general interest mass market magazine and stated the following about
the threat of television:

During the 19508 and 19608 television became the arch enemy of

mass audience magazines by siphoning away badly needed

advertising revenues. This lack of advertising revenue, television’s
impact on tens of millions of fascinated viewers, followed by
circulation battles among the magazines themselves, and coupled
with all of this a lack of clear vision and often mismanagement,
contributed to the decline and fall of the general interest mass

audience magazines. (p. 31)

As mentioned in the above quote, television not only ate.away
magazines’ national advertising market share, but it also took readers

away — general entertainment seekers. “If the habit of nighttime

20

television viewing is heavy in the household, magazines pile up unread
and there’s little incentive to buy new copies” (Wolseley, 1965, p. 53).
This is another reason why large general circulation magazines struggled.
The general mass market magazines like Life, Look and others eventually
failed due to a loss of two crucial resources: national advertising and
consumer time, both of which were being successfully courted by the
new four-color television medium.

Reacting to the loss of these resources, the magazine industry
rebounded by developing an increasing number of special-interest
magazines. This new resource was made up of readers who wanted
specialized or more detailed information they couldn’t get in the general
electronic media, and advertisers who wanted to spend money on a more
speciﬁc target audience. So, the magazine industry became more
specialized leading to a proliferation of special interest magazines
beginning in the 19708 on through to today (Abrahamson, 1996). This
was the beginning of the trend known as niche publishing.

With even more increased specialization, when Videocassettes and
cable television began to reach critical mass in the 19708 and 19808 one
might have predicted the death of reading because there was now a
channel or Videocassettes for just about every interest imaginable.
However, just the opposite occurred. The magazine industry used
television advertising and Videocassettes as promotional giveaways
providing added value for subscribers and attracting new ones
(Dougherty, 1982). Who can forget the classic example: Sports Illustrated
offering different videos “with your paid subscription” depending on the
time of year and speciﬁc sports season. Getting the magazine was almost

an afterthought to getting the free video. So in essence, Videocassettes

21

were used to expand the magazine market. Magazines also used the
cable television medium as brand extensions, producing instructional
tapes and television shows designed speciﬁcally for the magazine’s
audience (Knoll, 1984; Pool, 1983; Learner, 1982).

But the positive effect of cable television was felt beyond the shows
and advertisements produced by speciﬁc magazines. Samir Husni, a
journalism professor at the University of Mississippi, and a magazine
industry consultant explained the continued growth of niche
publications in this way: “If I watch mud wrestling on ESPN and want to
see more, I get a magazine. TV ’8 fueling it all” (Anthony, 1998). But this
explanation is not necessarily a new one. The idea of specialized
television promoting increased magazine readership was suggested as
early as 1965 by Wolseley: “... documentary television as well as some
regular programming can move viewers to read specialized magazines as
they search for more information on the subject of deep interest”
(Wolseley, 1965, p. 52).

So in effect, these new media have helped increase the number of
magazines by increasing an important resource: the number of people
interested in a speciﬁc hobby or subject, and the degree to which they
want that information. For example, in recent years, we have seen the
launches of a variety of new cable sports networks such as ESPN2, The
Golf Channel, a sports history channel, Speed Vision, a network of
regional sports channels under Fox and more. Yet 1998 alone saw the
launch of more than 122 new consumer sports magazines, with the cable
network ESPN launching its own print publication to compete with
Sports Illustrated (Shapiro, 1999). Then in 1999, the sports magazine
category led again in the number of new launches (M.P.A., 2001a).

22

This same idea of cross-pollination can also be applied to video
games. Beginning with the introduction of Pong in 1972 (Project, 2001)
video games have not relied on advertising but only competed with
magazines for consumer time. But the increased interest created by
these new games motivated potential buyers for a whole new category of
magazines.

If you’re a 12-year-old boy, you’re totally psyched for the new 64-

bit Nintendo gaming console to hit the market in September. If

you’re a parent, you can’t wait until the price drops from $249.95

to under $200 hopefully by Christmas. If you’re the publisher of a

gaming magazine, you’re counting on these events to boost your

business. (Sucov, 1996, p. 23)

In 1980, (S.R.D.S., 1980) this was essentially a category that didn’t
exist. Today with the number of different video game consoles and the
popularity of many of the same games on the PC, entertainment gaming
magazines are integral to the portfolio of some of the major players in the
magazine industry (Sucov, 1996). Some of these titles have circulations
in the 400,000 range. A number of gaming magazines also include game
demos on CD8 with their magazines (Nelson, 1997).

Computers

Computers ﬁrst appeared in their mainframe form in the 19608
and early '708 and provided an efﬁciency for magazines to reduce costs
and improve production quality via electronic typesetting and pre-
production. As the personal computer became popular in the early
19808, they were also an important part of magazines increasing
production quality and reducing costs. No longer did magazines have to

hire typesetters; writers and editors did the typesetting while they wrote

23

and edited. Furthermore, the eventual cost efﬁciencies provided by the
desktop publishing revolution enabled publishers to launch more
magazines in a variety of formats than ever before.

In much the same way ﬁlm provided fodder for its fans, the subject
of computers provided numerous opportunities for magazine launches.
This analogy was not lost on business writers in the early 19808:

In the Great Depression, Americans forgot their troubles and found

their comfort at the movies. A batch of movie magazines soon

sprang up to chronicle movie idols. Now a new star is commanding

publishers’ attention. It’s not a platinum-blonde sex symbol or a

Gable clone. Hardly. It’s a machine, the IBM Personal Computer.

At last count there were half a dozen magazines devoted solely to

Big Blue’s offering. (Benoit, 1983, p. 93)

Americans purchased 415,000 PCs for home and business use in
1980 (N .Y. Times, 1983, Nov. 9). Magazine consultants described the
rush to publish new computer titles as “incredible gold strikes” with
entrepreneurs hitting the big time with relatively little investment
(Klingel, 1983, p. 64). In early 1980 there were about 24 computer
magazines. This increased to 33 by the end of the year. In 1981 there
were 11 new launches, followed by 25 in 1982 and at least another 40 in
1983 (Klingel, 1983). That same year, a New York Times article put the
total number of computer titles at more than 200, not counting the new
media attempts of magazines being published on ﬂoppy disks (NY.
Times, 1983, Nov. 9). Jay Walker, publisher of the Folio 400, the
magazine industry’s answer to the Fortune 500, said, “This is
unprecedented in the history of magazine publishing” (NY. Times, 1983,
Nov. 9, p. D1).

24

For every new computer or operating system, software category,
and speciﬁc software applications introduced in the 19808, there seemed
to be several new magazines launched (Business Week, 1983). For
example, when IBM debuted its Per home computer in 1983, there were
at least three magazines aimed at end users (NY. Times, 1983, Nov. 9).
Note the names of these magazines that were playing off of the Apple
brand name at the time: Apple Orchard, inCider, Nibble and Peelings.
Most appropriately, reporters used the term “niche” to describe the
situation (Benoit, 1983; Klingel, 1983; NY. Times, 1983, Nov. 9). These
magazines succeeded and failed on the success or failure of the systems
or software. In some instances the magazines outlasted the popularity
and manufacturing of the particular PC brand or model (Wilson, 1994).

In one article, a successful publisher compared the explosion of
the PC to the explosion in popularity of the television in the 19508. But
the reporter writing the story identiﬁed one insightful difference:
“Television inspired a torrent of words but only one big magazine”
(Benoit, 1983, p. 94). Without the direct competition for advertising
dollars, the result of the PC explosion was instead a plethora of
magazines directed at speciﬁc segments of the PC market — again, a
whole new magazine category was created.

In addition to the increasing popularity of computers by
consumers — “magazines are livelier and easier to read than technical
manuals” (Benoit, 1983, p. 94) — another reason was the necessity for
new companies and products to build brand recognition in a market
where none existed. “When new brands are competing to establish brand
identities, they spend an abnormally high level on advertising... the

advertisers won’t, probably can’t maintain this level of advertising forever

25

(Klingel, 1983, p. 68). (This same scenario and advertising windfall would
play out again with the Internet boom in the late 19908.) The boom
eventually ended and a shakeout took place for both PC manufacturers
and publishers as advertising slowed and reader interest lagged behind
the number of magazines (Tchong, 1985; Moran, 1984; Klingel, 1983).

Another beneﬁt from computer magazines was their experimenting
with new media in the early 19808: delivering programs, text and
advertising on disk to their readers. “Because all of the readers have
computers, the medium can be different. You can distribute information
on diskette as well as paper. They’re going to advance publishing, getting
it away from paper,” said David Bunnell, founder of Personal Computing
and PC magazines (Benoit, 1983, p. 94). “It will not be the trend, but it
will be a trend,” said PC Disk Publisher Andre Van Hattum (N .Y. Times,
1983, Nov. 9, p. D7).

Computer, technology and new media magazines are still a major
category today. Many magazines include CD ROM disks as promotional
tools and to enhance single copy newsstand sales. According to the
National Directory of Magazines the computer/ automation magazine
category was the fourth leading category, growing from 338 to 605 titles
between the years 1988—1998 (National Directory of Magazines, 1999).
And Samir Husni’s Guide to New Consumer Magazineslists the computer
category as the ﬁfth fastest-growing category in 1999 with 16 new
launches (Husni, 1999). These categories, of course, include new media
and Internet-oriented magazines.

The Internet Threat
So in its initial form, the computer provided many beneﬁts — both

direct and indirect -— to the magazine industry. One 1997 study reported

26

that computer use was associated with an increase in the use of print,
not a decrease. However most of these positive correlations were
explained away by the fact that people of higher socioeconomic status are
in general more likely users of print media (Robinson 85 Godbey, 1997).
Furthermore, the study was conducted before the days of monthly
unlimited access plans now offered by America Online and virtually all
other lntemet service providers.

In this new millennium, the centuries-old magazine industry is
faced with the World Wide Web, a new mass communications medium
that is also interpersonal in nature, but offers many of the beneﬁts
provided by print, radio, and television. It is also competing along two
dimensions essential to magazines: consumer time and advertising
revenues. At least one Internet publisher predicts a “tectonic shift that
happens once a generation, and the shift of old brand to new is painful
and usually fateful to old brands” (Marlatt, 1999, p. 1). A 1998 report by
Forrester Research noted in this same article reported that “advertisers
will increasingly migrate to online business-to-business sites, and that
trade publishers are lagging behind web start-ups” (p. 1). An article in
Harvard Business Review also predicts a major shift in the way business
is conducted and information is shared.

A fundamental shift in the economics of information is
underway — a shift that is less about any speciﬁc new technology
than about the fact that a new behavior is reaching critical mass.
Millions of people at home and at work are communicating
electronically using universal, open standards. This explosion and

connectivity is the latest — and, for business strategists, the most

27

important — wave in the information revolution. (Evans 85 Wurster,

1997,p.70)

Advertisers, both local and national, are now spending signiﬁcant
dollars on the Internet. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), which
started tracking US. Internet ad spending in 1996, reports nearly $2
billion in advertising revenue during the third quarter of 2000 alone, an
increase of 63% over the third quarter‘of 1999. This occurred in a
category of advertising that didn’t exist six years ago. Said Rich LeFurgy,
chairman of the IAB:

There is no doubt that traditional advertisers are increasing their
online spending, as the $6 billion year-to-date attests. With
publishers offering a variety of new and innovative ad formats
these advertisers are now transitioning their objectives.
Increasingly aware of the power of the medium for branding and
direct marketing, these savvy advertisers are no longer looking for
the most trafﬁc, rather, they are seeking different ways and new
creative formats which publishers are offering, to build their
brands (IAB, 2001).

It’s not just advertising dollars that are shifting. Consumer time is
shifting as well. With US. Internet penetration at 60%, 63 million
Americans are averaging nearly 3 hours per week surﬁng the Web,
staying an average of about one minute per page (Netratings, 2001b).

Even with the exponential growth the Internet is experiencing, it is
certainly not a bad time for the magazine publishing industry. There
appears to be no slowing of the trend of increasing number and
specialization of magazine titles. 5,200 consumer magazines were
distributed nationally in 1998, more than double the 2,500 that were

28

distributed in 1985 (Anthony, 1998). There were more new magazine
launches than ever before — a total of 1,076 new consumer magazines in
1998 alone. Says Samir Husni, “I started tracking magazine launches 21
years ago, and I have never seen a year like 1998, complete with a record
number of new titles. A nonstop force of new magazines were launched
throughout the year, even in the doldrums of December when the
number of new titles was more than double the number of launches the

previous December” (Shapiro, 1999, p. 1).
The new and old media continue to play an important part of this

growth: 58 new computer magazines, 23 new entertainment and
performing arts magazines, 125 new media personality magazines, the
list goes on and on (Shapiro, 1999). Again, in 1999 there was an increase
in the number of magazine launches, although not quite as robust as
1998: 354 in 46 categories (Husni, 1999). According to Husni, the
Internet is driving increased consumer interest the same way cable
television did:
The Internet and cable television have driven a demand for more
information on more obscure things. So, as niche marketing is
carried further, magazines become “more human.” While TV
provides viewership to feed the readership, the Internet — where
niche marketing is far easier because distribution is cheap —— is
feeding a Balkanization of interests. And amateur ‘zines once
almost guerrilla publications, are now entering the mainstream as
desktop publishing becomes easier and the number of national
distributors increases. (Anthony, 1998, p. 1)
The question remains, however, can this growth and consumer

interest be sustained with the increasing penetration of Internet

29

households (Netratings, 2001c), growing carrier bandwidth (Strategis
Group, 2001), and quality of Internet Web sites? As outlined earlier, it
was more than 20 years after television’s advent before the full impact of
television hit the mass-market consumer magazines in the19608. One
recent study conducted by Starcom, the media buying unit of Leo
Burnett Co., blames the Internet for an apparent sharp fall-off in
magazine readership.

Top magazines lost 61 million readers, ages 18 to 49, between fall

1997 and fall 1998... the study blames the decline on reader

migration to the Internet and predicts the effects will be “real and

lasting”... 56 titles gained 18 million impressions, but 144

magazines lost 79 million impressions. (Staff, 1999, p. 1)

Publishers argue that the report mixed apples and oranges.
“Readership may have declined for the top 50 magazines, but the
audience has simply shifted to the incredible number of hot new
magazines that started. The real trend is that magazines are being
created for much more targeted segments” (Staff, 1999, p. 1). Further
defending the position of print publishers, there has also been some
question for a number of years as to the stability and consistency of
year-to-year, industry-wide circulation ﬁgures (Staff, 1996).

The trend suggested by the Starcom study continued in 1999 with
the Top 25 ABC audited magazines losing circulation while the remainder
of the Top 100 showing a slight gain, resulting in a net increase of 1.3%
(M.P.A., 2000a).

This may be an indication of another level of increased
specialization by the magazine industry: the relatively general magazines

of today lose circulation while the even more specialized niche magazines

3O

gain. Just as the general interest mass market magazines lost consumers
and advertisers to television in the 19508 and 19608, today’s relatively
generalized special-interest publications (large circulation) are losing
readers while an increasing number of even more specialized magazines
are being launched. Today there are more than 300 ABC-audited
magazines with circulations of less than 250,000, while there are fewer
than 100 with circulations greater than one million. And the number of
specialized titles keeps growing. Standard Rate and Data ﬁgures show
the number of consumer magazines increasing from 1,795 in 1998 to
2,520 in 1999 (M.P.A., 2000b). These ﬁgures certainly support the idea of
a complementary effect, where other media increase the overall market
size for audience interest in particular magazines. History may be
repeating itself in that today’s general interest magazines are losing
circulation, while niche magazines are gaining within even more
specialized markets.
Conclusion

The purpose of this historical overview was two-fold. First, it
provides perspective for the study at hand. When a new medium arrives
in the marketplace with its accompanying bells and whistles some
observers (usually proponents of the new medium) tend to ring death
knells for existing media. While speciﬁc types and segments have and
will continue to be negatively affected by new media, as a whole, and over
a lengthy period, old media have found ways to survive in the presence of
new media. Even with all the excitement generated by the explosive
growth of the Internet and its exciting capabilities, history shows us that
old media continue to survive and prosper — somehow. But there are

serious lessons to be learned as well. If the general interest magazines in

31

the 19608 had reacted earlier and differently to the threat from
television, perhaps their downfall would not have been so great.

The second major idea suggested in this chapter is the concept
that new media can certainly displace existing media (as with television
and the general interest magazines), but it can also have a
complementary effect as well (computers, for example). The overall
purpose of this study is to address the question of whether, in the long
run for readers, the Web has the capability to displace or complement
traditional magazines.

With this displacement vs. complementary idea in mind — based
on an historical perspective —— we are now prepared to examine the
literature surrounding niche theory and media gratiﬁcations. An
explication of the niche theory, uses and gratiﬁcations methodology and
the strengths and weakness of magazine and Internet use studies will be
followed by a presentation of the research questions and hypotheses at

the end of the Chapter 3.

32

CHAPTER 3
Review of the Literature

Introduction

There are only 24 hours in every day. Consumers have a relatively
ﬁnite amount of time for information or entertainment media. In July of
2000, Internet usage reached critical mass with 52% of the population
having home access and 32% having surfed the Web that month
(Netratings, 2000a). By early 2001, household penetration had reached
60% (Netratings, 2001c), broadband access was “soaring” (Netratings,
2001a) and average Internet usage had crossed the 10-hour-a—month
mark for the ﬁrst time — a 23% increase over the previous year
(Netratings, 2000b). And these ﬁgures apparently don’t include the
accessibility of the Internet in the workplace.

When compared to the average number of hours Americans spend
watching television, 10 hours of Internet usage over an entire month may
not seem substantial, but because there are only 24 hours in a day, that
diversion and information-seeking time has to come from somewhere.
And there is evidence that it may be coming from time originally spent
reading newspapers, magazines, watching television, and even sleeping
(Stempel et al., 2000; FIND /SVP, 1997). The point being is that 10-plus
hours of average monthly use is a signiﬁcant threat by a new medium

towards existing media.

The Leo Burnett study cited in the previous chapter (Staff, 1999)
suggesting the Internet was the cause for a reduction in magazine
readership is supported by the ﬁndings of the 1997 American Internet
Survey. According to this random telephone survey of 1000 World Wide

Web users, “traditional media continue to lose timeshare to the Internet”

33

(FIND / SVP, 1997). Sixteen percent of current adult Internet users in
1997 said their use of print magazines had declined as result of using
the Internet, compared to 13 percent in 1995. Other studies have
produced similar results where online users are reading less print such
as newspapers and news magazines (Kayany 85 Yelsma, 2000; Stempel et
al., 2000).

However, there is also some evidence that for habitual print users,
the Internet is a supplementary source of information not one that
replaces conventional print use. According to a survey conducted by The
Pew Research Center For The People 85 The Press...

The online population is more likely to read the newspaper daily

than the ofﬂine public. But this is not an apples-to-apples

comparison because Internet users tend to be more interested in
the news than non-users... The survey ﬁnds other indications
supporting the idea that using the Internet may have a more

negative impact on news viewing than news reading. (1999, p. 5)

However, it should be noted that the survey did not directly
examine magazine use, but was more interested in conventional
newspaper usage. But as the socioeconomic demographic moves
downward towards the middle-class and beyond, the likelihood of the
Internet replacing, as opposed to supplementing, conventional print use
may be more likely. Some of the other ﬁndings presented in the Pew
Research Center study tend to support this, wherein more recent
adopters of the Internet are less likely to be conventional print users.

There seems to be mixed messages at this point in time between
the Internet displacing magazines vs. the Internet complementing

magazines. There is evidence that the magazine industry is thriving with

34

so many new magazines being launched, but at the same time there is
some evidence that magazines in general are losing audience to the
Internet. Are magazines piling up around house unread due to increased
World Wide Web use? How are uses of World Wide Web sites and
magazines similar? How are they different?

With this problem and the perspective of history in mind, this
literature review examines the theoretical framework used to study the
question as to what degree the Web might displace traditional print
magazines. An overview of niche theory is provided, followed by an
explication of its concepts and constructs. Then, the uses and
gratiﬁcations perspective is touched on related to measuring the
potential for audience attention, which is what is being compared in this
study. More speciﬁcally, these comprise media gratiﬁcations and a
construct related to media utility — gratiﬁcation opportunities. Along the
way, niche studies as well as gratiﬁcations research — especially those
pertaining to magazines and / or the Internet — are presented as
examples and to provide further understanding of the variables at hand.
Then, based on this literature review the research questions and
hypotheses are presented at the end of the chapter.

The Theory of the Niche

The theory of the niche is a population ecology model used to
examine “the ways in which biological organisms adapted themselves to
their environments. The term ‘population ecology’ was adopted to
recognize the focus on adaptation by collective of organisms rather than
by individuals” (Lambkin, 1990, p. 157). Adaptation refers to how well a

particular population of organisms changes its eating or other habits in

35

order to survive the introduction of a new species into an environment
with ﬁxed resources. As explained by Lambkin:

Each stage in the sequence is marked by an invasion of a new

species or an association of species, the series culminating in a

climax stage in which the dominant species appears. The theory of

natural selection (Darwin, 1859) provides the mechanism for
explaining how the dominant species is chosen and how a long-

term equilibrium is achieved. (p. 158)

With the historical overview outlined earlier in mind, one can start
to see the analog: each introduction and penetration of new media
represents the invasion of a new species.

While there is some debate as to the degree and importance of
competition in natural settings, when two similar species compete over
ﬁxed resources, there are four possible outcomes: 1) species A goes
extinct; 2) species B goes extinct; 3) either A or B goes extinct depending
on the original conditions, or ﬁnally, 4) they coexist (Stiling, 1999). The
competitive exclusion principle (Keddy, 1989; Hardin, 1960) posits that
complete competitors cannot coexist on ﬁnite resources. So when
seemingly similar species do coexist it is because one species (or perhaps
both) modiﬁes its behavior to becomes less similar — through how it
uses resources, or adaptive behavior.

Included in niche theory are a number of mathematical formulae
used to measure and compare the so-called width of the resources a
population utilizes to survive — the level of specialism or generalism of
its diet, for instance. These measures help researchers determine if
adaptation has occurred as well as estimate the potential for one species
going extinct.

36

While the capability to adapt in nature is due to chance as Darwin
suggests, human organizations adapt to competitive and environmental
forces through collective cognitive thought processes as well as chance.
As applied to the study of human organizations, the use of niche theory
goes beyond analog. Because niche theory measures the relative degree
of competition and competitive advantage of one species or population
over another, and not actual biological functions, it can be applied to
other situations in a theoretically rigorous manner.

While the idea of applying population ecolog models to the study
of human collectives has been around for some time (Campbell, 1969),
theorists eventually began adapting these models more speciﬁcally to the
study of human organizations (Aldrich, 1979; Hannan 85 Freeman, 1977).
Principles of competition and coexistence have been used outside the
realm of biolog in ﬁelds ranging from geography to psycholog, from
archeolog to economics (Hawley, 1969). Dimmick highlights niche
theory’s application to non-biological ﬁelds in this way:

The theory of the niche is abstract and general. It is not “about”

biolog; its substance is a set of concepts and propositions

concerning competition and coexistence. As such, it is not
exclusively a biological theory but a theory formulated by
bioecologists to describe and explain competition and coexistence
concepts and measures are applied directly, not in analogic

fashion but as a theory of competition per se. (Dimmick 85

Rothenbuhler, 1984, p. 107-108)

As cited earlier and later in this paper, John Dimmick and
colleagues have done much of the original work of applying the models

and principles of niche theory to the study of mass media. The ﬁrst
37

published application of the theory to mass media appeared in an article
titled, “The Theory of the Niche: Quantifying Competition Among Media
Industries” (Dimmick 85 Rothenbuhler, 1984) and in a book chapter that
same year (Dimmick 85 Rothenbuhler, 1984). Their motivation was “the
lack of conceptual and empirical tools for assessing the impact of
ﬂedgling industries such as cable television or nascent industries such
as videotex on the existing industries of communication” (p. 290). In
addition to laying out the initial background and reasoning for niche
theory, these initial articles examined how the radio medium changed its
pattern of resource use — the type of advertising it sold — as the new
medium of television entered the market and began taking away national
advertisers.

Since that time, the effectiveness of cable television’s entrance into
the marketplace (Dimmick et al., 1992), the video industry (Dimmick,
1997; Albarran 85 Dimmick, 1993), media preferences (Dimmick, 1993),
new media ventures (Dimmick 85 Wallschlaeger, 1986), as well as
telephone and email use (Dimmick, Kline, 85 Stafford, 1999) have been
studied. Other recent applications by other authors, building further on
niche theory and its application to both new and old media, include the
impact of intermedia and newspaper competition on advertising sales
(Shaver 85 Lacy, 1999), the Web as a new marketing channel in
comparison to catalogs and retail stores (Li 85 Kuo, 2000) and the
displacement of old media by online media within the home (Kayany 85

Yelsma, 2000).

38

Concepts and Deﬁnitions

Before addressing gratiﬁcations and relating niche theory to the
magazine industry, following is further explanation and deﬁnitions of
some of the major concepts comprising niche theory and the study of
competition in ecolog. General concepts such as population and
environment are outlined ﬁrst, followed by speciﬁc explanations of niche
width, overlap, and competitive superiority.

Population and community. From a unit of analysis standpoint,
the theory of the niche does not look at individual units or organisms,
but a collection of organisms called a population, guild or species. This is
one central difference between niche theory and conventional economic
theories of competition where the unit of analysis generally the ﬁrm.

“To the human ecologist, a population is a set of organizations that
are relatively homogeneous internally yet can be distinguished when
populations are compared” (Dimmick 85 Rothenbuhler, 1984, p. 105). For
example, mass communication populations comprise different media
types such as television, radio, cable television, newspapers, magazines,
etc. Each of these populations is a different species living and requiring
nourishment -- resources —— to survive. As a whole, they are considered
a community of mass media types.

Environment. Environments are the setting where these
populations reside and exist, a culmination of all the factors that affect
an organization or population of organizations. Populations may be
affected by competitive forces in the environment but also by other forces
— general economic conditions, for example. The impact of a recession is
not the result of a competitor; the environment changes and resources

become more scarce for all competitors. Environments may be stable or

39

changing. Some marketing authors have applied the relative stability of
the environment into their niche equations (Lambkin, 1990), but these
concepts are beyond the scope of this initial study. What’s important to
realize here is that emergence of new media (as described in Chapter 2)
causes changes in the overall environment in which mass media exist.
Media organizations must react to environmental changes if they are
going to survive. The emergence of the Web has drastically changed the
environment for all existing media, including magazines.

Resource use and competition. To survive, individuals and
populations must nourish themselves with speciﬁc resources. Resource
use is how mass media survive. For example, the resources used by
magazines include advertising dollars, subscription revenues, single copy
sales, etc. Subscription and single copy revenues also represent
consumer time or audience attention. And without audience attention,
magazines would not be able to sell advertising.

In media niche studies, some of the dimensions of resource use
examined include advertising, consumer time and consumer spending,
gratiﬁcations, gratiﬁcations opportunities (Dimmick et al., 1999). As one
can see from the marketplace, different populations often require some of
the same resources, such as advertising revenues and audience
attention. And because resources are relatively ﬁnite, populations must
compete — collectively and individually for their use. The more similar
these resources, the more populations compete.

“Competition refers to the indirect effect of the use of resources
by one population on the availability of resources to other forms: a
resource consumed by one form is unavailable to others” (Dimmick 85

Rothenbuhler, 1984, p. 107). This concept assumes that resources are

40

limited. If resources were automatically available when needed, there
would be no competition. In terms of monetary spending, the Principle of
Relative Constancy (McCombs, 1972; McCombs 85 Eyal, 1981) posits that
the amount of money spent by advertisers and consumers on mass
media is determined by the overall state of the economy. This
relationship has remained relatively consistent throughout this century.
(For recent critiques of the PRC and alternative explanations see
Dimmick (1997) and Lacy 85 Noh (1997).)

Media time for audience attention can be considered relatively
ﬁnite as well. There are only 24 hours per day, no more, no less.
Individuals must choose with which media they spend their time. And
while shifts between and within obligatory and free time activities have
been identiﬁed (Robinson, 1981; Jacobs 85 Gerson, 2001), leisure time is
still arguably a relatively ﬁnite resource:

For most of us, the amount of time available for the consumption

of various types of media is limited... Consequently, when a new

media activity is introduced into our scheduled lives, we may
expect a corresponding reduction in the time spent with other

media activities and / or non-media tasks. (Kayany 85 Yelsma, 2000,

p.216)

Superiority and displacement. If one population is superior to
another in obtaining resources, it may drive another population to
extinction or force the population to change or adapt its behavior, thus
reducing the level of competition and ensuring survival. This is known as
competitive displacement. A variety of populations are competing for the

resources within an environment as outlined above.

41

In terms of Internet Web site and magazine use, these two
mediums are competing for audience attention (time), advertising dollars,
etc. Due to its inherit characteristics and capabilities, as well as content,
one medium may display competitive superiority over the other in
satisfying speciﬁc gratiﬁcations when consumers make decisions about
their time. In other words, one medium may be “better” or more efﬁcient
in ﬁlling a need than another. (A more complete explanation of
gratiﬁcations will be provided in the next section when the measurement
model is discussed.) Dimmick has modiﬁed ecological mathematical
calculations of competitive superiority to make them appropriate for the
media research data (Dimmick et al., 1999).

While “the argument that underlies the displacement thesis is
logical research ﬁndings have not consistently supported this model”
(Kayany 85 Yelsma, 2000, p. 216). Some studies have supported a
symmetrical relationship (increase-decrease). As the use of one new
medium increases, another decreases. Still other studies have supported
a complementary relationship (increase-increase), while still others have
found no relationship at all between new and old media. For an overview
of these studies see Kayany and Yelsma (2000). One can also see a
pattern of discrepancies in the historical overview of magazines and new
media presented in Chapter 2.

One mediating variable that seems to help in explaining these
discrepancies is the concept of functional equivalence. In general, over
the century, displacement occurred between new and old media when
there were at least two dimensions of functional equivalence in
competition. This is related to how truly similar two populations really

are. Competing solely for audience attention does not create threatening

42

competition, but competing for audience attention and advertising
dollars in a similar way does. This leads to the concept of niche.

Niche breadth. Niche breadth refers to the relationship of a
population to its environment — “where it sits” in relation to others so to
speak. Dimmick and Rothenbuler (1984) state that “the function or role
of the form or population within the community is described as its niche”
(p. 106). Niche breadth, or width, comprises the number or amount of
different resources that a population utilizes. A population with a Wide
niche nourishes is itself from a wider variety of resources categories. For
example, the feature ﬁlm industry draws its income primarily from one
source: consumer sales (in its various forms). So as a population, ﬁlm
occupies a narrower niche — is more of a “specialist” — than magazines.
Magazines derive income from consumer sales and advertising sales. The
same idea could be applied to newspapers, which use national, regional
and local advertising — a wider niche along the dimension of advertising
— as opposed to national magazines which may only sell to national
accounts — a narrower niche.

Populations utilizing narrower niche breadths are called
“specialists” while those utilizing more categories along a speciﬁc
dimension, or a wider niche breadth, are called “generalists.” In other
words, the specialist requires more speciﬁc resources to survive, while
the generalist nourishes itself with a wider variety. In most niche studies,
niche breadth is applied in examining one or two of the macro-
dimensions mentioned earlier such as advertising, consumer time or
gratiﬁcations.

The actual niche breadth of a particular medium is calculated

through a mathematical formula, as are niche overlap and competitive

43

superiority. These calculations will be presented in the following chapter
when the deﬁnitions of this study are operationalized.

Niche overlap. This deﬁnes “the degree to which two populations
depend on the same resources” (Dimmick 85 Rothenbuhler, 1984, p. 106).
In the media world, different media may rely on the same resource. For
example, magazines, newspapers, television and now the Internet
compete for national advertising dollars for major brand names. These
different niches or media have a certain degree of niche overlap. In terms
of fulﬁlling use gratiﬁcations, or how consumers might spend their time,
the Internet may be overlapping with television broadcast news and radio
for how consumers get immediate news on big events — functional
equivalence.

The degree to which these needs are attempted to be fulﬁlled, and
fulﬁlled, by these different media is called niche overlap. And through the
mathematical niche formula, the relative overlap between two media can
be calculated and compared. “High overlap indicates that two media are
substitutes whereas low overlap indicates that different needs are
being served and that a state of complementarity exist between the two
media” (Dimmick et al., 1999, p. 6). Again, the formula for niche overlap
will be presented later when deﬁnitions are operationalized. Higher
overlap indicates a higher level of competition between two populations.

In sum, the theory of the niche can be used to explain how new
media affect the growth or stagnation of existing media. It can also be
used to make general predictions about the future. Again, it should be
noted that applied to mass media, the theory of the niche is an actual

theory featuring explanatory calculations, not some sort of analog.

44

Niche and Gratiﬁcations

One competitive dimension that has received recent attention is
how new media fulﬁll the same gratiﬁcations as existing media — the idea
of how functionally equivalent two media are, and in what areas might
one medium be superior to the other (Dimmick et al., 1999; Kayany 85
Yelsma, 2000; Li 85 Kuo, 2000). The type, degree and overlap of
gratiﬁcations between magazine and Web use is the subject of this study.
Therefore, it will be useful at this point to brieﬂy touch on the uses and
gratiﬁcations perspective and address some of the studies that have
examined the uses and gratiﬁcations of magazines.

The uses and gratiﬁcations approach (Blumler 85 Katz, 1974) to the
study of media comprises a large body of work that is long-standing and
well documented (McQuail, 1984; Palmgreen, 1984). This perspective has
also been used increasingly in studying Internet use alone as well as its
effect on traditional media. Published papers comprise studies about and
among commercial Web sites users (Eighmey 85 McCord, 1998; Eighmey,
1997), business-personal use (Korgaonkar 85 Wolin, 1999), computer
utility and multimedia (Perse 85 Dunn, 1998), college students (Chamey
85 Greenberg, 1999) and teens (LaFerle, Edwards, 85 Lee, 2000).

“At the core of uses and gratiﬁcations theory lies the assumption
that audience members actively seek out the mass media to satisfy
individual needs” (lnfante, Rancer, 85 Womack, 1993, p. 406). Other core
assumptions include that the audience uses media to ﬁll expectations,
that the audience selects media and its content to satisfy needs, and that
audience members are aware and capable of stating their motives and

reasons for selecting speciﬁc media (Infante et al., 1993).

45

Within the framework of niche theory, the idea of gratiﬁcation is
primarily utilized as a measurement technique to compare one medium
to another, as opposed to explaining the use of one medium. In other
words, the theory of the niche is primarily used to explain niche width,
breadth and overlap, while uses and gratiﬁcations is used to provide the
initial data for these mathematical calculations. One of the criticisms
levied at uses and gratiﬁcations has been that it is “nothing more than a
data-collecting strategy” (Severin 85 Tankard, 197 9, p. 274). But for niche
studies, it is a data collecting strateg within the framework of an entirely
different theory.

Traditional gratiﬁcations sought and obtained are attributed to the
individual because they derive from his or her desire (conscious or
unconscious) to ﬁll some predetermined need. Some of the original needs
put forth by McQuail, Blumler and Brown (197 2) include diversion,
personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. These and
other relatively similar types of needs have been identiﬁed as factors in
media use studies relating to all of the major mass media.

Another basic assumption of the theory is that, “In the mass
communication process much initiative in linking need gratiﬁcation and
media choice lies with the audience member” (Blumler 85 Katz, 1974, p.
21). This assumption has been supported in numerous studies where
gratiﬁcations play a signiﬁcant role in media choice. (See Palmgreen,
Wenner 85 Rosengren (1985) and Katz, Gurevitch 85 Haas (1973) for some
early examples.) Some media are more efﬁcient than others in fulﬁlling
speciﬁc gratiﬁcations at certain times and places, each offering a unique
combination of content, attributes, exposure situations (Katz, Blumler, 85

Gurevitch, 1974). “The general conclusion from uses and gratiﬁcations

46

research is that gratiﬁcations sought motivate the use of a particular
medium” (Dimmick, Sikand, 85 Patterson, 1994, p. 643). The empirical
presence of this connection between gratiﬁcations and media choice
supports the validity and reliability of using gratiﬁcation measures as an
instrument to gather data to use in niche studies that compare media.

For uses and gratiﬁcation studies, it is recommended that
statements and measures be created through qualitative pre-surveys
that ask individuals why they use certain media (Blumler, 1985). Then in
the main study, these statements are factor analyzed to create
dimensions of use. While this seemed to be the case earlier in
gratiﬁcations research, one weakness in some of the recent Internet
studies mentioned above is that gratiﬁcation statements from earlier,
non-new media studies were simply recycled or modiﬁed, or simply
created from scratch.

In some cases, logical use themes were created from other new
media research. No one has really gone back to step one in the process,
gathering original Internet use statements. For that matter, traditional
use statements and dimensions for conventional media may have
changed as new media have altered the landscape. Dimmick suggests
that because there is no universal set of domains that cross all media,
pilot studies should be conducted to identify new media gratiﬁcations
(Dimmick et al., 2000).

Gratiﬁcation Opportunities

In 1994 Dimmick 85 Albarran introduced a theoretical construct -—
a previously unidentiﬁed and somewhat different gratiﬁcation dimension
called “gratiﬁcation opportunities” — that was apparently the result of

individuals having to differentiate between new media. As they explain,

47

Gratiﬁcation opportunities is deﬁned as the perceived attributes of

a medium related to time use and expanded choice of content. A

medium which offers more of a given content type more often

provides a greater array of gratiﬁcation opportunities to the
audience. To date, most studies have focused on gratiﬁcations
sought and obtained from the media to satisfy different needs such
as relaxation or to pass the time. Gratiﬁcations sought and
obtained differ from gratiﬁcation opportunities in that they reﬂect

attributes of individuals rather than attributes of a medium. (p.

224)

A brief overview of the most recent published niche study by
Dimmick, Kline 85 Stafford (2000), which compares the niches of email
and the telephone, serves to demonstrate the conceptual difference
between gratiﬁcations and gratiﬁcation opportunities. It also resembles
the basic theoretical application of niche theory to the study of magazine
vs. Web use as presented in this paper.

Using responses to a random telephone survey of 309 residents of
Columbus, Ohio, the authors measured the niche width and niche
overlap of email and the telephone use, along with a measure of
competitive superiority. The gratiﬁcation and gratiﬁcation opportunity
statements came from a qualitative pre-survey about email use; many of
the statements were similar to those found in previous telephone use
studies.

The researchers hypothesized two dimensions of telephone and
email use. One involved affective gratiﬁcations related to social
relationship maintenance: to share ideas and opinions, send and receive

personal messages, keep in touch, etc.

48

The other factor comprised gratiﬁcation opportunities that related
to the utility of the medium: communication that is quick or fast, to get
the most for your money, ﬁts people’s work schedules, etc. The ﬁndings
showed that while there was competition and overlap between the media,
telephone’s niche leaned towards a competitive advantage along the
social gratiﬁcation dimension, while email found its niche and was
superior along the gratiﬁcation opportunities dimension. In conclusion
the authors stated,

The contrast between the gratiﬁcations and gratiﬁcations

opportunities provided by the phone and email deﬁne a critical

difference in the gratiﬁcations niches of the two mediums which
allow them to coexist. While the data clearly indicates some
displacement of long distance phone calls, the data do not support
the conclusion, in this population, that email in its present
technological conﬁguration will replace or exclude long distance

service. (p. 15)

In terms of gratiﬁcations of magazines vs. the World Wide Web,
magazines have not been included in previous research; this is a new
application of this theoretical perspective that should serve to extend and
amplify this theory. It will also help answer some serious issues facing
the magazine industry. As Dimmick, Kline 85 Stafford offered: “... a new
medium may or may not compete with existing media. If competition
does exist then the consequence for the older media consists of
exclusion, replacement, or displacement wherein the new medium takes

over some of the roles played by the older media” (2000, p. 230).

49

Niche TheonLand Magazines

Now that niche theory has been explained, it can be used to
illustrate in general theoretical terms some of the events that took place
when new media entered the magazine environment as described in
Chapter 2. This will be followed by an examination of magazine and
Internet gratiﬁcations pertinent to the construction of the statements
used in this study. An analog will then be presented to “paint an overall
picture” of this study, prior to the presentation of the research questions
and hypotheses.

In reviewing theory of the niche literature, no studies directly
related to the magazine industry were found. In fact, magazines have
been speciﬁcally excluded due to the unavailability of data. Dimmick and
Rothenbuhler state in explaining their choices of television, radio,
newspaper and billboards, included in a study that analyzed advertising
trends: “Since the [magazine] categories are not comparable to the way in
which advertising estimates work for the other industries, magazines and
farm publications were excluded from the analysis” (1984, p. 108).

Even so, there are several trends and issues that can be explained
using the framework of niche theory along with anecdotal and empirical
examples. Some of these might include the magazine medium’s reaction
to the entry of new media in the following dimensions or areas of
resource use:

Subiect categgries. Looking at the history of magazines during the
century, another macro dimension that could be identiﬁed is that of
subject matter. Through the review presented in Chapter 2, one can see
that the medium has moved from being a specialist, relying on fewer

types of subject matter categories to attract consumers, to more of a

50

generalist, relying on many more subject categories to attract consumers
— through the publication of an increasing number of magazine titles in
increasing number of categories. Thus, along the macro dimension of
subject categories, the magazine industry has increased its niche
breadth to compete with earlier new media such as radio and television.
At the same time, new media such as cable television and the Internet
have spawned increased interest in more specialized subject matters.

The concept of specialty magazines should not be confused with a
“specialist” within the theory of the niche because they are quite
opposite. The magazine industry as a whole has become more of a
generalist as it has sought to nourish itself with income from more
categories and more publications — a wider niche breadth.

Specialty magazines aren’t anything new; they have been around
for more than a century, but earlier circulations were relatively small
(van Zuilen, 197 7). But there were also very popular general interest
magazines. These large circulation publications, so popular from the
19408 through the early 19708, tended to serve one mass national
audience with general entertainment and information. So in terms of the
subject matter required to attract readers' and advertisers' attention,
magazines have moved from being more of a specialist — serving up fewer,
broader categories — to being more of a generalist with a much wider
niche breadth along the dimension of subject categories.

This is evidenced through the increasing number of magazine
categories and the titles within those categories. According to Husni,
5,200 consumer magazines were distributed nationally in 1998, up from
just 2,500 in 1985. And the survival rate is a respectable four of 10

(Anthony, 1998). Thus, reacting to new media’s entrance into the

51

environment -— and their ability to attract resources such as national
advertising and audience attention — the magazine industry has reacted
from the 19708 and into the 19908 by creating thousands upon
thousands of magazines to attract more consumer and advertiser
attention and to fulﬁll a wider degree of gratiﬁcations. There also seems
to be a complementary effect as well at times.

So while a number of individual members of the magazine
population —- the large general interest magazines — were forced into
extinction, the population as a whole adapted by relying on different
resources — becoming more the generalist by widening its niche breadth
— through the creation of more and more magazines that fulﬁlled
different gratiﬁcations and provided avenues for more specialized
national advertisers.

With national network television, there were originally only three
members of the national television population, but with the introduction
of cable television the number of broadcast networks grew (Fox, UPN,
etc.). The television industry as a population was widening its niche
breadth in the area of subject categories as well. In response to this, the
magazine industry has continued to widen its niche breadth through the
creation of more and more magazine titles, thus attracting consumers to
spend their time seeking more specialized gratiﬁcations.

Compared to the subject categories offered by the World Wide Web,
the number of television stations and cable networks — and the shows
they air — are relatively few in number. Now with the Internet, there are
literally millions of members and subject categories — Web sites — of
this new population that have entered the environment. If subject

categories are used as a measure of niche breadth in terms of attracting

52

consumers (time) or the ability to provide gratiﬁcations, the Internet has
a wider niche breadth overall because it is relying on an increasing
number of subject matters or categories.

The number of informational Web sites dwarfs the number of
magazines being published. Additionally, this new population is capable
of attracting national and local advertising and fulﬁlling gratiﬁcations
previously fulﬁlled by magazines. The niche breadth of this new medium,
whether you’re talking about sheer numbers or advertising dollars or
gratiﬁcations fulﬁllment may be much wider than the niche breadths of
existing conventional media. And the ability of the Internet to fulﬁll
gratiﬁcations and attract national advertising is only going to increase as
bandwidth and delivery speed increases. This is why the Internet is such
a threat to existing media.

Advertising While magazine advertising has not been included in
previous niche studies due to data availability, there is evidence that the
industry reacted to television’s entrance into the environment in much
the same way radio did (Dimmick 85 Rothenbuhler, 1984). Like radio,
magazines adjusted to television’s taking away national advertisers
through the creation of more regional publications. While there are
certainly other factors involved such as economic development and the
diffusion of publishing technolog, it is interesting to note that the rise in
the launches of local and regional magazines roughly correlates to the
increasing number of television households. The number of households
with television at the beginning of each decade is presented in Figure 1
alongside the number of regional and city magazine launches during the

same decade.

53

900

 

 

8005

700

 

 

600 +

500

 

 

 

300

 

200

 

 

100-+

 

 

 

 

1950 1960 1970 1980

 

I -O- No. of regional magazine launches -I- No. of houses with sets I

 

ﬁgure 1: Regignal magazine launches and US. television households
Source: Magazine data is from Riley 85 Selnow (1989); TV data is from
Salvaggio and Bryant (1989). TV households have been standardized (in

tens of thousands).

Gratiﬁcations. No obvious empirical evidence was identiﬁed in this

 

literature review. But as shown in Chapter 2, there are conﬂicting data
regarding the grth or stagnation of the magazine industry — pointing
towards a complementary or displacing relationship. The purpose of this
study is examine this issue at the audience level. We now discuss some
gratiﬁcations research on magazines and the Internet before presenting

the research questions and hypotheses.

54

Mne Gratiﬁcations Research

“If print media are given more than cursory attention, it is usually
the newspaper that receives notice” (Schmidt, 1980, p. 2) This idea is
exhibited in gratiﬁcations research speciﬁc to magazines. When
compared to other traditional mass media, “uses and gratiﬁcations
research exclusively relevant to magazines is sparse” (Payne, J .H., 85
Dozier, 1988, p. 909).

As with other uses and gratiﬁcations research, earlier magazine-
only studies focused on more general use: consumer and news
magazines (Towers 85 Hartung, 1985), readership of news magazines
(Towers, 1987) and trade vs. consumer magazines (Payne et al., 1988).
More recent magazine-only research has been extremely speciﬁc: cancer
information seekers (Johnson 85 Meischke, 1993) and African-American
teen female readers (Duke, 2000). But compared to other major media,
magazine gratiﬁcation studies are relatively few and far between.
Moreover, while magazines have been included in some recent cross-
media and new media studies regarding functional equivalence (Stempel
et al., 2000; Vincent 85 Basil, 1997) they have been excluded in others
(Kayany 85 Yelsma, 2000; Perse 85 Dunn, 1998) or grouped together with
other print media (LaFerle et al., 2000; Perse 85 Courtright, 1993). And
even in the studies where magazines were speciﬁcally included, the
researchers were often concerned with weekly news magazine use;
typical monthly magazine research is scarcer still.

The uses and gratiﬁcations of magazines identiﬁed by some of the
earlier quantitative, magazine-speciﬁc research comprise three major
dimensions, along with gratiﬁcation statements, much like dimensions

identiﬁed in research of other media. “Repeated use of a somewhat

55

standardized group of measures suggests user motivations may be
reduced to three:” (Payne et al., 1988, p. 909)

Surveillance. “... can be viewed as media use with the objective of
securing new information about one’s environment, or conﬁrming,
reinforcing or modifying views about the environment.” (Payne et al.,
1988, p. 910). This dimension is reﬂected in gratiﬁcation statements
such as “Magazines help me understand what’s going on” and
“Magazines help me keep abreast of events.”

Interaction. “Media use motivated by anticipation of interaction is
expected to provide information or insights that might be called upon as
grist for conversation or other social intercourse” (Payne et al., 1988, p.
910). Included in the interaction dimension are statements like,
“Magazines offer interesting stories” and “Magazines offer information to
pass on to others.” Anticipated social interaction is the key concept with
this dimension.

Diversion. is “... prompted by a need to divorce oneself from
disruptive environmental stimuli, to reduce or modify cognitive or
effective stimulation” (Payne, Severn and Dozier, 1988, p. 910).
“Magazines help pass time” and “Magazines help me relax” are two of the
statements representative of this dimension.

Magazine Dimensions Media Choice

Some correlative work has been done wherein certain gratiﬁcations
were more likely to be identiﬁed by subscribers to one type of magazine
compared to other types of magazines and single copy readers as
opposed to subscribers. For example, Towers (1987) found that the

diversion dimension predicted the use of consumer magazines and the

56

surveillance and interaction dimensions predicted the use of news
magazines such as Time, Newsweek and U. S. News and World Report.

Payne, Severn and Dozier (1988) reported that “users of trade
magazines have higher surveillance scores than users of consumer
magazines” and that “diversion seeking was higher among users of
consumer magazines than for users of trade publications” (p. 912).
Towers and Hartung (1985) examined readers and non-readers of
magazines and found that “magazine non-readers were more likely to be
oriented toward local information” (p. 5). Furthermore, they reported that
while newspapers and magazines share the same dimensions of
surveillance, diversion and interaction, “the three dimensions for
magazine emphasize different uses and gratiﬁcations statements for
those concepts than did newspaper” (p. 5).

In another pre-Internet, cross media comparison, Towers (1986)
examined the factor loadings and emphasis of 14 uses and gratiﬁcations
statements across magazines, newspapers, television and radio. In
conclusion he reported:

Combined, these ﬁndings meant that diversion spanned all three

media, supporting the cross-media perspective. But the instability

of surveillance and interaction across media meant that those
concepts had particular meanings for particular media, supporting
the single media approach of structural research. Diversion was
common across media while surveillance and interaction depended

on the media under consideration. (p. 48).

Thus, while some statements within particular dimensions are
consistent across media, others vary depending on the speciﬁc media.

The statements that are not consistent across media comprise the uses

57

and gratiﬁcations that distinguish one medium from another. These
differences may comprise the subject matter addressed by these media or
the inherent physical and technical characteristics of the delivery
medium itself — gratiﬁcation opportunities.

Wire and Internet Gratiﬁcations

“There is of course, no single master list of the gratiﬁcations
obtained from media use; instead, multiple lists, categories and
classiﬁcation systems abound” (Chamey 85 Greenberg, 1999). This is
certainly evident in the recent Internet use studies identiﬁed earlier in
this chapter. Prior to the creation of gratiﬁcation statements for this
study, one question was what gratiﬁcations identiﬁed in Internet studies
are similar to those of conventional print magazines? Since there were
many similarities found in the previous cross media comparison of
traditional media (Towers, 1986), one would assume that there would be
similarities with the Internet.

Chamey and Greenberg (1999) identiﬁed eight Internet use
gratiﬁcation dimensions. These included Keeping Informed, Diversion-
Entertainment, Peer Identity, Good Feelings, Communication, Sites 85
Sounds, Career and Coolness. By far the greatest factor was Keeping
Informed, which explained 39% of the variance. The remaining factors
each explained less than 10% of the variance.

The Keeping Informed dimension may seem most similar to the
original magazine dimension of Surveillance, however, this Internet
dimension of Keeping Informed included several statements such as “to
get information about products or services” and “to get information to
pass on to other people” that originally loaded on other factors in the

magazine research by Towers — diversion and interaction.

58

Clearly, a general cross comparison between the Web and
magazines is not easy to do because of the increased number of
dimensions — eight as opposed three — and the new capabilities of
interpersonal communication and interactivity provided by the Web. Of
the 46 statements included in the factor analysis from the Internet
study, only six or seven of the original 14 magazine uses and
gratiﬁcations statements could be reasonably identiﬁed in the new
Internet study. In other words, the uses and gratiﬁcations of the Internet
vs. that of magazines, or the potential niche breadth and overlap as
deﬁned within the theory of the niche, are not quickly identiﬁed by
comparing previously used gratiﬁcations statements. Furthermore, this
Internet study had respondents rate how often they got on the lntemet to
satisfy these needs (statements), whereas the previous research collected
by Towers asked respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with
the statements. It is not known what effect this may have had on the
ﬁndings and differences.

As noted, one of the weaknesses of previous magazine gratiﬁcation
research is the repeated use of existing measures. For example, the 14
statements utilized by Towers were taken from “research into the
surveillance-diversion-personal identity triad in relation to newspaper
and radio” (Towers, 1987, p. 5). Other magazine studies seem to have
modiﬁed the uses and gratiﬁcations of newspapers and other media to ﬁt
the magazine study at hand. And subsequent research relied on the
gratiﬁcations statements used by previous researchers. Nowhere in the
literature was found deﬁnitive evidence of a qualitative pre-survey of the
uses and gratiﬁcations speciﬁc to magazines, which is such an important

part of the uses and gratiﬁcations methodolog. If one utilizes the same

59

gratiﬁcation statements over and over again, the same dimensions are
likely to be identiﬁed. As Palmgreen warns, “researchers should not be
wedded to gratiﬁcation typologies that the very changes under study may
have rendered incomplete, if not obsolete” (1984). As new media have
entered the environment over the last two decades, the uses and
gratiﬁcations of magazines may have changed. Thus any study
comparing magazine and Internet uses should use both pre- and post-
new media gratiﬁcation statements from other studies as well as those
garnered from a qualitative pre-survey.

A Niche Analog

With niche theory and other issues related to magazine and
lntemet gratiﬁcations examined, it will be useful to present an analog of
the study at hand, prior to presenting the research questions and
hypotheses. This study’s use of niche theory terms and mathematical
formulae is beyond a simple analog, but it will still be useful to paint a
picture to provide better understanding.

While it is easy to comprehend advertising revenues as a
fundamental resource that magazines must compete for and consume to
survive, it is more difﬁcult to ﬁnd a direct analog for audience attention
of magazines or the Internet. Yes, subscription revenues are an indirect
measure of consumer time spent with a medium. But subscription
revenues do not directly reﬂect the gratiﬁcations obtained by the
consumers. (Also, one could subscribe, but not actually read.) Plus,
many media products —- TV, trade magazines, the Internet — do not
require a subscription. Following is an analog from nature that
maintains the analog of revenues, but also includes the concept of

consumer time and attention spent with the medium:

60

Imagine a large, grassy meadow featuring various groups of ﬂowers
and ﬂowering plants. The meadow represents the overall economic
environment while the types of ﬂowers or plants symbolize the various
media types. Each speciﬁc population of ﬂowers is made up of a number-
of individuals with similar characteristics. Thus each medium — TV,
lntemet, magazines, etc. — isa different population made up of individual
products (stations, titles, sites) with similar characteristics.

A few major resources that are required by these plants include
sunlight, water and the nutrients in the ground. These populations
compete for resources as individuals, but also as groups. So, sunlight,
water, etc. might represent the various types advertising revenues (local,
national) and advertising categories. Lacking any one of these major
resources, both individuals and groups will die off. Helpful, but not
totally necessary nutrients might represent subscription revenues.

Now, how does consumer time or audience attention ﬁt in? Well,
there is one other resource required for plants and ﬂowers to survive —
pollination. Without it the population cannot reproduce and continue.
One way plants are pollinated is through honeybees visiting the various
ﬂowers for nectar. They are attracted to the ﬂowers because the nectar
fulﬁlls a need. Bees select the ﬂowers based on their availability, the
amount and quality of the nectar inside, the visual patterns present in
the ﬂowers. So, to complete the analog of a niche study in nature, this
study comprises interviewing the honeybees (consumers) about how well
two populations of plants and their ﬂowers (magazines or the Web)
attract and fulﬁll their needs (gratiﬁcations). We are also asking about

the taste of the nectar from each ﬂower type and what they use it for

61

back at the hive. With this analog in place, the research questions and
hypotheses are now presented.
Research questions and hypotheses

The literature review comprising Chapters 2 and 3 included an
historical overview of the effect of new media on the magazine industry,
an explanation of the theory of the niche as applied to the magazine
industry. It also featured magazine- and Internet-oriented gratiﬁcations
research, which is used as a measurement tool in some theory of the
niche studies. The purpose of Chapter 2 was to provide perspective, while
Chapter 3 explicated theory and highlighted the strengths and
weaknesses of previous research so the following research questions and
plan could be presented.

Research questions. Based on the literature review and the theory
and measurement models outlined, the following research questions were
posed:

1) Are Web users reporting less magazine use after lntemet

adopﬁon?

2) With immediate, diverse and interactive content available to Web
users, do traditional magazine gratiﬁcations still fall into the three
main factors identiﬁed in earlier literature — surveillance, diversion

and interaction?

3) Relative to magazine use, what gratiﬁcations identiﬁed in recent
Internet studies fall into these same three factors? What newly
identiﬁed dimensions — including gratiﬁcation opportunities——

stand alone?

62

4) What is the degree of specialism or generalism — niche breadth

— in total, and along any new or existing gratiﬁcation dimensions?

5) As measured by the niche overlap of gratiﬁcations, what is the
level of similarity perceived between print magazine and Web use in

total and along the identiﬁed gratiﬁcation dimensions?

6) On what gratiﬁcation dimensions does Web use display
competitive superiority over print magazines and vice versa? And to
what degree do these superiorities point to displacement or

coexistence?

ge_search hypotheses. Additionally, several hypotheses based on
the theory, models and trends presented in the literature review are
presented below.

First, actual lntemet use is a critical variable in predicting whether
participants will perceive the lntemet to be of a greater use and value
than magazines.

ﬂ_1_. There is a positive correlation between time spent using
the Web and total lntemet niche width, niche overlap and
competitive superiority. Because niche overlap is an inverse
measure, the positive correlation denotes a perception of
decreasing competition between magazines and the Web.
Furthermore, the opposite should hold true for magazine users

(who use both mediums). Heavier users of magazines should perceive

beneﬁts of magazines and appreciate the differences between the

63

mediums:

H_2_. There is a positive correlation between magazine use and
total magazine niche width, niche overlap and competitive
superiority.

One of the survey questions is directly related to the time spent
reading magazines since becoming a Web user. Analyzed in groups of
increasing and decreasing use:

& Increasing magazine users will perceive signiﬁcantly
greater magazine niche width, niche overlap and competitive
superiority between the two mediums.

Iii Decreasing magazine users will perceive signiﬁcantly
greater lntemet niche width, competitive superiority and lesser
niche overlap.

Next, demographic data from a variety of studies (Pew Research
Center, 1998) suggest that younger individuals are more likely to use the
Internet; they have had greater exposure to this resource to fulﬁll speciﬁc
media gratiﬁcations. And the younger one is, the more likely one will
perceive the new medium of the lntemet to be advantageous over
conventional print magazine use. Older participants will perceive greater
magazine niche breadth and lesser niche overlap between magazines and
the Internet. The opposite will be the case for younger participants.
Therefore, for the total score of all factors combined:

H_5_. There is a positive correlation between age and total
magazine niche breadth, niche overlap and competitive superiority.

HQ. There is a negative correlation between age and lntemet
breadth and competitive superiority.

Studies have also identiﬁed lntemet users as being information

64

hungry and more likely to be newspaper readers (NAA, 1999). While this
denotes a preference for information, it should also denote some
preference for the tactile nature of the printed page. Therefore:

EL. Newspaper users will perceive greater total magazine
niche width, niche overlap and competitive superiority than non-
newspaper readers.

Finally, Internet access speed should have some type of an effect
on the overall perception of the utility of the lntemet. Users with faster
access can visit more sites, download more ﬁles, etc. Therefore:

H_8_. Users with access speed greater than 56K will perceive
greater Internet width and superiority, and less overlap than users
with access speed of 56K or less.

Conclusion

This chapter has presented a theoretical literature review of niche
theory and gratiﬁcations related to magazine and Internet use. The
research questions and hypotheses were also presented. The following
chapter provides the deﬁnition and Operationalization of variables, along
with the research methodolog, used to answer the research questions

and test the research hypotheses.

65

CHAPTER 4
Method
Introduction

As outlined in previous chapters, when new media enter the
environment they consume resources. Traditional media are sometimes
displaced. In other instances, a complementary relationship may be
apparent, whereby the new media increase interest thereby increasing
overall size of the marketplace for existing media. Within the framework
of niche theory and media gratiﬁcations, this study examines the degree
to which magazines and the World Wide Web compete for audience
attention along several dimensions involving use.

This chapter explains the survey design and procedures used to
answer the research questions and test the research hypotheses. A
description of the variables, the setting of the study, survey
instrumentation, procedures for collecting the data, and population and
sample are described. The results are then presented in Chapter 5.
Deﬁnition and Operationalizgtion of Variables

The main research questions will be answered through exploratory
factor analysis and the results of niche width, breadth and superiority
measures. These niche calculations are based on established formulae
(Dimmick et al., 2000). The dimensions and data used for the formulae
stem from ratings obtained on a number of gratiﬁcation statements,
which are described in detail later in this chapter. These gratiﬁcation
statements were based on a combination of traditional, pre-Internet
magazine use statements, more recent Internet-oriented use statements
and other statements identiﬁed in a qualitative pre-survey.

A description of the niche measures — as outlined by Dimmick

66

(2000) is presented ﬁrst, followed by the deﬁnition of the other variables

associated with the research hypotheses.

Niche breadth. In this study, niche breadth or width measures how
generalized or specialized a medium is perceived to be. A high score
suggests generalism, while a low score indicates specialism. The score is
standardized on a 0 to 1.0 scale, so as a score nears 1.0 the greater the
number of gratiﬁcations it fulﬁlls. Niche breadth is calculated utilizing
the niche formula modiﬁed by Dimmick (Dimmick et al., 2000):

Niche Breadth

[i00J-KIT
K(u-l)

N
3:2 - N -

n=l

 

 

 

 

Where:
u, I = the upper and lower bounds of a scale (5 and 1)
GO = a gratiﬁcation obtained rating on a scale
N = the number of respondents using a medium
n = the ﬁrst respondent
K = the number of scales on a dimension

k = the ﬁrst gratiﬁcation scale

Niche overlap. Niche overlap measures the relationship between
one population and another in the community. It measures the degree of

competition between two populations (assuming resources are ﬁnite); in

67

this case the two populations are magazines and the Web. Again, the

data stems from the ratings obtained on the gratiﬁcation statements.

Dimmick's (2000) formula for niche overlap is calculated and further

deﬁned as follows:

Niche Overlap

 

 

~ 60,-60.
2% K )2
0..="=l

1,] N

 

Where:
i, j = medium i and medium j
GO = a gratiﬁcation obtained rating on a scale for i and j
N = the number of respondents who use both i and j

n = the ﬁrst respondent

Overlap is an inverse measure and low values indicate high
similarity between the two media. The lower limit of the overlap
measure is zero and indicates that the niches of the media iand j
overlap completely, or the niches of the two are identical. The
upper limit is u minus land is reached when respondents rate one
medium at the upper bound on all scales and the other medium at
the lower bound of all scales. Niche overlap can be considered as
an index of the substitutability or complementarity of two media.
High overlap indicates that two media are substitutes; they serve

the same needs. Lower overlap indicates the two serve different

68

needs and thus a state of complementarity may exist between the

two (Dimmick et al., 2000).

Niche superiority. This measure suggests which of the two
mediums being tested is perceived to be better or more efﬁcient at
fulﬁlling the speciﬁc gratiﬁcations. “A medium that obtains a signiﬁcantly
higher superiority score than another medium is superior in providing
gratiﬁcations to the audience members” (Dimmick et al., 2000, p. 233).

Dimmick’s copyrighted formula for niche superiority is as follows:

Niche Superiority (@1985, J. Dimmick)

 

Superiority S ,- >j =

 

N
N K
2 2 (m...)
Superiority S j>i = ”=1 *3,

Where:

i, j = medium i and j
m i),- = the value of a respondent’s rating for those scale items on
which i is rated greater than j (the sum of the actual values)
m j>,-= the value of a respondent’s rating for those scale items on
which j is rated greater than i (the sum of the actual values)

K = the number of scales on a dimension

k = the ﬁrst gratiﬁcation scale

N = the number of respondents who use both i and j

n = the ﬁrst respondent

69

The scores of niche superiority are deﬁned as arithmetic
means. A8 a result, the differences in superiority between two
means on a utility may be tested for signiﬁcance using a t-test for
correlated media. If the test yields a signiﬁcant result, this is
interpreted as superiority of one medium over another on that
utility. Conversely, the absence of a signiﬁcant difference indicates
that neither medium is superior on that niche dimension.
(Dimmick et al., 2000).

Other demographic and independent variables used in the
hypotheses include:

Magazine use. This variable was deﬁned as subscribing to or
reading conventional printed magazines for consumer, special interest or
business use. These could be monthly or weekly publications. This was
operationalized through two questions asking how many magazines they
subscribed to and how often they purchased singles copies of magazines.
(See Appendix A for copy of survey).

World Wide Web use. This comprised viewing and reading of Web
pages published by organizations or individuals for consumer, special
interest or business use. For the purposes of this study, WWW use did
not include the use of email, chat rooms and message boards (directly
interacting with other individuals or groups of individuals). This variable
was operationalized through one question that asked how many hours
they spent visiting Web sites in the last week.

Displacement. The concept of whether magazines were being
displaced by the Web on an individual basis was operationalized through
one question: “Since becoming a WWW user, has the amount of time you

spend reading magazines” increased, remained the same, or decreased?

70

Newspaper use. Newspaper readers were considered to be a good
representation of print-centric individuals. The concept was
operationalized through a simple, direct dichotomous question: whether
they had read a local newspaper the previous day. The variable was
operationalized in this way to create a harsher line between the two
groups, readers and non-readers.

Access speed. This variable was measured with one ordinal
question, asking subjects the speed of their primary Internet connection.
For data analysis they were grouped in two: 56K and slower, or faster
than 56K.

Method

A self-report questionnaire was administered to 1250 subscribers
of a monthly special interest magazine with a total US. circulation of
50,000. The magazine is targeted at semi-professional and professional
musicians, and is owned by a major global publisher with more than 300
titles in trade and consumer categories. Based on the demographics
promoted in its advertising sales kit, the magazine subscribers were
predominantly male, average age of 36, with more than 60% using the
lntemet to access manufacturer Web sites.

Niche studies require a comparison between two mediums. Thus,
the goal was to capture a group of respondents who used both magazines
and the World Wide Web. While not immediately generalizable to the
entire lntemet population, this population is a valid selection because it
is representative of typical Web users. This population will continue to
grow as the lntemet penetrates more and more households. Due to the
requirement of the use of both mediums, this sample was also deemed

more generalizable than readers of a technological or computer

71

magazine. Readers of computer magazines may have been too lntemet
savvy, skewing the results. Thus, this population was deemed balanced
enough to enable the effective execution of the survey, since it required
users of both mediums. Keep in mind also, respondents were asked
about their overall magazine and Web use, not just use related to the
subject of the magazine.

The data were gathered through two separate administrations of a
self-report questionnaire to two subsets of the same target group. First,
500 readers were selected at random (every nth) from a subscriber list
and mailed a print version of the survey with accompanying postage-paid
reply envelope. Seven hundred and ﬁfty additional readers were invited to
participate in a Web-based version of the survey via email. This group
was targeted via a list of subscribers who had previously registered for
interactive content on the magazine’s Web site. So the ﬁrst sample was a
true random sample of subscribers, while the second set was a purposive
sample with speciﬁc characteristics.

The survey was administered to the two subsets in this manner for
several reasons: The ﬁrst was to provide as high a variance as possible in
Web use among respondents. While a niche study does require that
participants use both mediums, a single administration of the survey
over the Web to a Web-based group might skew results by attracting
heavier Web users than average.

Second, a Web-based survey could create response bias due to the
survey instrument itself. Participants taking the survey on the lntemet
might rate the lntemet more favorably simply because they were taking
the survey over the lntemet. The additional mail administration of the

survey would allow the isolation and identiﬁcation of this confounding

72

variable if it existed. Finally, if neither sample or instrument bias could
explain any potential differences in how the two sub-sets rated
magazines and the Web, a newly identiﬁed gratiﬁcation dimension might
provide further depth in answering the research questions or explaining
the results of the hypotheses.

In summary, the goal of executing the survey via two subsets of the
same homogeneous group of subscribers, utilizing two different
mediums to administer the survey, was to enhance the validity of the
ﬁndings and allow for the possible comparisons between the groups -— if
any existed.

To increase the response rate among both samples, a prize was
offered; all participants completing the survey were entered in a contest
to win a $100 gift certiﬁcate to the store of their choice. These types of
incentives increase response rate but do not result in response bias
(Goetz, Tyler, 85 Cook, 1984; Armstrong, 1975).

In early October 2000, the mail survey was sent to the 500
subscribers followed by a reminder postcard three weeks later. The cover
letter from the author was on Michigan State University School of
Journalism letterhead and explained the basic purpose of the survey
along with other information required by MSU’s institutional review
board (UCRISH). While each survey was assigned a visible tracking
number, respondents were guaranteed conﬁdentiality. In early November
a second copy of the survey was sent to those who had not yet returned
the survey. Copies of the reminder postcards, and second survey cover
letter are available in Appendix A.

For the Web group sample, an initial invitation was sent via email

in early November at the time the ﬁrst reminder postcards were sent to

73

the mail group. Two additional reminder invitations were sent at 10-day
intervals (see Appendix B). In addition to being promised conﬁdentiality,
Web users were promised that their email addresses would not be used
for any purpose other than the execution of this study. To guarantee that
there would not be multiple submissions from the same individual, a
security feature on the program used to administer the survey was
utilized which allowed only one participant or submission per email
address.
Response Rate

Six foreign addresses were inadvertently included when the sample
was drawn so the total mailed was 494. Eventually 63 were returned
because of incorrect addresses, forwarding orders expired, etc. This bad
address rate of 12.7% seemed high. The editor at the publishing
company was contacted and it was determined that a large number of
subscribers had recently been purchased from a competing publication
that was going out of business. The new list had not been audited and
bad addresses had not been purged from the list as of that date either.
This explained the high bad-address rate.

155 mail surveys were returned, yielding a gross response rate of
36% based on “good” addresses. Three were returned incomplete while
13 were from non-Web users, which were excluded from analysis. (Again,
keep in mind that niche studies require users of both mediums.) A
response rate of 36% is consistent with current mail survey trends.
However, the fact that 92% of all of the respondents were Web and
magazine users, points to the conclusion that non-Web users were much
less likely to return the survey than Web users. This makes sense since

Web-users were probably more motivated to return and complete a

74

survey that pertained to a subject matter they were interested or involved
in. If you take into account the original ﬁgures provided by the
publishers — that 60% of the magazine’s subscribers were Web users —
then the net response rate was probably much higher.

Since the Web survey was administered over the Internet to a
subset of magazine subscribers, all respondents were magazine and Web
users. 750 were invited to participate with 233 completing the survey — a
response rate of 31%. While this was not as high as the mailed survey it
was deemed satisfactory compared to other the Internet; not as high as
some, but higher than others. (Cook, Heath, 85 Thompson, 2000;
Schillewaert, Langerak, 85 Duhamel, 1998).

Survev Instrument

The survey instrument comprised 50 questions in three sections.
The ﬁrst section measured Web, magazine and some other mass media
use levels. The second section comprised evaluations of magazines and
Web use on speciﬁc gratiﬁcation statements. The ﬁnal section asked
demographic questions. The introductory page, which featured the
appropriate disclosure information, also included a deﬁnition of
magazine and the World Wide Web use similar to the deﬁnitions
presented earlier in this chapter. At the end of the survey there was also
a place for respondents to add additional qualitative comments.

The survey’s main section asked the subject to rate how helpful
World Wide Web sites and magazines were on 35 gratiﬁcation statements
with corresponding Likert scales. The statements originated from past
magazine gratiﬁcations oriented research, a recent Internet uses and
gratiﬁcations study, and statements obtained through a qualitative pre-

survey.

75

More speciﬁcally, these measures comprised 13 statements from
Payne, Severn 85 Dozier (1988); one statement from Towers (1985); nine
non-redundant lntemet use statements from Chamey and Greenberg
(1999); and 10 Internet-oriented uses statements from a pre-survey
where 283 subjects were asked why they visited the Web sites of print
publications.

Since this study examines the potential displacement of magazines
by W use, it was important to use statements that were a) based on
traditional magazine use; thus the statement from Payne, Severn 85
Dozier, and Towers, and b) included only those uses that could possibly
be fulﬁlled by both mediums. So statements selected from the Internet
gratiﬁcations study and pre-survey were applicable to both mediums, or
were modiﬁed to become such.

For example, the statement “To look at interesting graphics and
animations” from Charney and Greenberg could not be ﬁlled by a printed
magazine, since magazines cannot be a cartoon animation. So this
statement was modiﬁed to become “to look at interesting graphics and
photos.”

As outlined in the literature review, multiple underlying factors
were expected, and other niche studies have highlighted the importance
of utility, or gratiﬁcation opportunities, when comparing two mediums.
Again, it should be emphasized that the purpose of using gratiﬁcation
statements was not to explain use, as is the case in uses and
gratiﬁcation studies, but to provide a framework for the two mediums to
be compared for niche calculations.

This being said, however, it was important to include as many

legitimate factors as possible; thus, the inclusion of statements gathered

76

in a pre-survey, which will be outlined in a moment. These statements
were speciﬁcally related to the utility of the two mediums.
The statements and corresponding factors (from their original

studies) are presented in Table 1.

Table 1

Traditional Magazine Gratiﬁcations from Fame, Severn 85 Dozier (1988)

 

 

 

Statement Factor

They give me information on job matters Surveillance
They help me with my job Surveillance
They teach me about common issues Surveillance
They offer immediate news Surveillance
They help me keep abreast of events Surveillance
They help me understand what is going on Surveillance
They help me be happy Diversion
They help me relax Diversion
They offer companionship Diversion
They help improve my lifestyle Diversion
They help pass time Diversion
They offer interesting stories (to tell to others) Interaction
They offer information to pass on to others Interaction

77

Statement From Towers

Towers used most of the same statements, or very similar ones, to
those above. However, Towers included an additional statement that
could be ﬁlled by both Web pages and magazines that was not used by
Payne, Severn 85 Dozier. Thus, it was appropriate for the study at hand.

Table 2
Traditional Magg_zine Gratiﬁcations from Towers (1985)

 

Statement Factor

 

They help me ﬁnd products through advertisements Interaction

Internet Statements From Charnev and Greenberg

A number of high-loading (above .50), non-redundant statements
from the Internet uses and gratiﬁcations factors identiﬁed by Charney
and Greenberg that could be applied to magazines as well as the Web

were also included:

78

Table 3

Internet Gratiﬁcations from Charnev and Greenbergj 19991

 

Statement Factor

 

They help me get information about weather,

stocks and sports. Keeping Informed
They help me to combat boredom Diversion
They help me to play Diversion
They help me to gain status Peer Identity
They help me to meet new people Peer Identity
They help me to feel important Good Feelings
They help me to feel good Good Feelings

They help me to look at interesting
graphics and photos Sights 85 Sounds

They help me to learn about famous people Sights 85 Sounds

Pre-survev Statements

The exploratory qualitative statements were gathered as part of
another media use survey conducted in the spring of 1999. Prior to its
posting on the Web, the pre-survey was administered to a group of 18
undergraduate college students. After completing the survey the students
were asked about the ease of taking the survey and any speciﬁc
questions that were difﬁcult to understand. The students had several
minor suggestions that were incorporated into the survey.

Data were collected through a convenience sample and online
survey administered through a sports-oriented Web site. Section 1

comprised demographic and media use questions; section two asked how

79

participants perceived Web and other conventional media, and the ﬁnal
section asked questions about their use of print-magazine—sponsored

Web sites. In total, there were 25 questions.

For 14 days, as Web users arrived at the home page for this Web
site, they were greeted with a welcome message. The message asked
visitors to ﬁll out a short questionnaire before gaining access to the full
Web site. Visitors were also told that by completing the survey and
providing their email address, they would be entered in a contest wherein
10 individual copies of an instructional sports videotape would be given
away to 10 survey participants. The retail value of the videotape was
$24.95. Visitors were also ensured that their email address would not be
used for any other marketing per email list purposes. To guarantee that
there would not be multiple submissions from the same individual, a
security feature on the program used to administer the survey was
utilized which allowed only one participant or submission per email
address.

What made the administration of the survey somewhat different
than some of the other typical online surveys found in the literature is
that visitors were required to complete the survey in order to gain access
to the Web site. While this reduced the number of participants, it also
allowed for a better understanding of the overall percentage of
participation and self-selection. Unlike an email survey posted to a
newsgroup or email list, which is seen by perhaps thousands — with a
few percentage points self selecting and ﬁlling out the survey — this
method of administration allowed for a response rate calculation more

analogous to a conventional mail survey.

80

The net number of responses over the 14-day period was 283. For
several months prior to the administration of the survey the sports-
oriented Web site was receiving approximately 845 visitors a week on
average. So for a 14-day period, the Web site might have received
approximately 1690 visitors. During the two-week period that the survey
was administered, the total number of visitors to the site was reduced to
537. Those who completed the survey with an email address numbered
283. The remainder were those who completed the survey without
including an email address.

Based on the average number of visitors, approximately 1200
individuals arriving at the site during those 14 days decided not to
participate and moved on in their Web surﬁng activities. So a gross
response rate of 31% was attained, but after removing those that did not
include an email address, the net response rate was only 17%. This is
not as good as a conventional mail survey but much better than the
relatively self-selected few that participate in a survey posted to a
newsgroup or email list.

Those taking the survey were asked three times why they visited
the Web site of conventional printed magazines. More than 300
statements were gathered through these open-ended questions. The
statements were scanned by the author for themes that reﬂected items
not present in previous magazine-only statements, interactivity, and
gratiﬁcation opportunities that were available on both mediums. The
ﬁnal exploratory statements that best reﬂected the themes and
redundancies present in the 300 gathered are presented directly below.
The factor or gratiﬁcation dimension is one of the research questions and
will be determined through factor analysis.

81

TI

H
‘9

Table 4

Magazine-Internet Statements Collected in Pre-Survey

 

Statement

Factor

 

They help me because they are convenient

They help me to get information quickly

They help me to locate exactly what I’m looking for
They help me follow up and get in-depth information
They help me to contact authors and editors

They help me locate past and future articles

They help me because they are economical

They help me to express my opinion

They help me by being readily accessible

They help me to make buying decisions

TBD
TBD

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

‘l" .. .5.
I

TBD
TBD

TBD

In sum, the purpose of utilizing three different sources was to: a)

establish a baseline with pre-Internet, magazine-oriented statements and

dimensions, b) add to this by capitalizing on previous Internet research

with additional statements and dimensions, and c) enhance validity by

using qualitative statements which may or may not fall into existing

factors. This combination of established and new statements and factors

dictated the use of exploratory factor analysis, as opposed to

conﬁrmatory factor analysis, which might have been more appropriate if

the exploratory statements not been used.

82

 

Data analysis

Data analyses for the niche measures were completed in the Excel
spreadsheet program using standard functions. Individual niche scores
and the remaining data were then imported into SPSS as well as Statview
(by SASS) for statistical testing. Factor analysis and scale construction
are traditionally presented in the methods chapter, but since several of
the research questions in this study directly related to their existence
and construction, factor analysis is presented in the following results
chapter.
Conclusion

This chapter explained the survey design and procedures used to
answer the research questions and test the research hypotheses. A
description of the variables, the study’s setting, survey instrumentation,
procedures for collecting the data, and population and sample were

described. The results are presented in Chapter 5.

83

CHAPTER 5
Results

Introduction

Based on niche theory and employing gratiﬁcation measures, this
study has sought to identify the degree to which the use of two mediums
may lead to displacement or complementarity. Nearly 400 users of both
mediums were surveyed and asked to rate the media on 35 gratiﬁcation
statements. The previous chapters have presented the statement of the
problem, an historical overview, theoretical literature review and methods
used to gather the data. Prior to a full discussion, this chapter presents
numerical answers to the research questions and results of the statistical
data analysis. The interpretation and analysis of these answers and
results, along with a practical and theoretical discussion, are found in
the ﬁnal chapter.
Description of Sample

The demographics of the returned surveys yielded the following
description of the sample. In this section, the characteristics of the total
sample are described, noting any substantive differences between the two
subsets — the mail survey subset and the Web survey subset. Any non-
normal distributions are also noted. As mentioned earlier, three surveys
were excluded because they were either not ﬁlled out or had extensive
missing data. There were 14 that had missing data in a few places
somewhere in the survey; these answers were replaced with the mean for

that particular question or statement.

Gender and age. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents (N = 371)
were male while 11% were female. This was anticipated and mirrors the

demographics of the magazine’s subscriber base. As reported in recent

84

lntemet research (Cole, 2000), the ratio of male-female users is much
closer to 50-50. Thus, this highlights one of the weaknesses in the
potential generalizibility of the ﬁndings. However, this was one of the
sacriﬁces made to have access to a speciﬁc group of Web users with
other beneﬁcial characteristics related to this study.

The mean age was 40 years, which may seem a bit old, but just as
the gender demographic is changing, so is average age steadily growing
older. The UCLA Internet reports that “contrary to conventional wisdom,
Internet use is not dominated by young people. Between the age of 12
and 35, the average weekly Internet connect time increases with age”
(Cole, 2000, p. 14).

While there was no signiﬁcant difference in age between the two
sub-samples, Web respondents were more likely to be male (93% to 7%)
and mail respondents were more likely to be female (17% to 83%) (ﬂ = 1,
x2 = 7.91, p < .01). Two possible explanations for this might be: 1) Males
may be more likely to be heavier lntemet users, more likely to be part of
an online community. 2) Some female spouses or signiﬁcant others may
have seen the printed mail survey and ﬁlled it out for their male
companion. Email tends to be more private than mail coming to a home.
“My husband doesn’t have time to ﬁll this out so I’m going to do it for
him — our magazine and web activity are similar,” reﬂects comments
appearing on at least two returned surveys.

Education snd income. The other two socioeconomic indicators
obtained on the survey were education and income. Overall, the
respondents were well educated. Forty-three percent had some college or
a two-year degree, followed by 27% with a four-year degree and 15% with
a graduate degree. Ten percent had a high school diploma or GED. In

85

terms of income, the subjects reﬂected both the leveling off of the average
income of lntemet user, and the general income of this type of magazine
subscribers: musicians. On average, these were not the most highly paid
professionals. Of the 350 respondents reporting, the median household
income was “$30,001-$45,000” (21%), followed by “$45,001-$60,000”
(20%), “More than $90,001 (18%), then “60,001-$75,000” (14%) and
$7o,oor-$9o,ooo (14%).

Web use. Several questions regarding Web and other mass media
use were asked. For the Web, the ﬁrst question was how many hours
they spent visiting Web sites in the last week (with a reminder not to
include email or chat room board activities). Twenty-six percent spent
one-two hours, followed closely by “more than ﬁve hours” (24%) and
“two-three hours” (24%). Fourteen percent visited Web sites less then one
hour per week and 12% estimated their use at four-ﬁve hours per week.
These frequency ﬁgures are in line with the nearly three hours per week
average reported recently by Nielsen / / Netratings (2001b).

Between the two sample subsets, mail survey respondents tended
to be lighter Web users with greater numbers than expected logging two
hours of use and less. Conversely, those that took the survey via the
Internet tended to be heavier users with greater numbers than expected
visiting Web sites for three hours or more each week (Q: = 4, x2 = 21.86, p
< .001). This difference was still signiﬁcant when the cell sizes were made
more similar by randomly reducing the number of Web respondents to
equal the number of mail respondents. This difference was somewhat
expected and was one of the reasons that the survey was administered
via the mail and the Web, so there could be the widest possible degree of

user types. Even so, this heavier use among the Web respondents is not

86

substantially greater than the nearly three hours per week average
reported by Netratings. In other words, the Web respondents did not
comprise a collection of outliers. Using the two samples served its
purpose of providing as wide a variance as possible for this variable.

Access speed and location. A strong majority of the users (59%)
had 28.8k to 56k modem connections to the lntemet. This was followed
by 13% with access via cable modems and 10% with T-1 or T-3
connections, and 7% with ISDN or DSL and other marginal categories (I!
= 369). The location of access was primarily from home 63%, followed by
34% accessing from work, 2% from school and 1% other.

Length of use. Forty-one percent of the respondents had been
accessing the Web from “One to Three Years”, followed by 39% at “Four
to Six Years”, 16% at “More Than Six Years.” Only 4% were relatively new
users at “Less Than a Year.” This purposive sample was more
experienced than the typical Web user found in the random sample of
the UCLA study (Cole, 2000) cited earlier. That study comprised 21%
who had been users for less than a year, compared to only 4% in this
sample. Furthermore, the UCLA study showed 16% had been using the
Internet for four years or more; whereas 54% of this study’s sample has
been accessing for more than four years. But again, due to the nature of
this study, mature users (without being extreme outliers) were preferred
because they would have had enough experience to more legitimately
compare the two mediums. The “newness and excitement” of the Internet
would have worn off, leaving them more likely to perceive the positive
and negatives of the lntemet and magazines.

Egasons for use. When asked how they spent their time reading

and viewing World Wide Web pages, respondents answered “General

87

Interest/ Entertainment” (24%), “Special Interest/ Hobby” (36%)
“Business/ Work”, (32%) and “School/Education” (9%).

Magazine use. Subjects subscribed to just more than three weekly
or monthly printed magazines (M = 3.27, S_D = 1.88). They also reported
buying between one and two magazines (M = 1.36, SD = 1.39) on a single
copy basis over the past month (newsstand, convenience store, etc.) Both
of these seem to be slightly higher than the very vague averages reported
by the Magazine Publishers of America (2000b). Frequency distributions
for time spent reading magazines were as follows: “General
Interest/ Entertainment” (25%), “Special Interest/ Hobby” (46%)
“Business/ Work”, (25%) and “School / Education” (4%).

Television and newspaper use. For daily television use, the leading
frequencies were 30% (Q = 111) watching less than one hour daily,
followed by 28% (g = 104) watching one hour, 18% (g = 66) watching two
hours and 10% (Q = 39) watching three hours. These self-reports of
television viewing seem to be less than the average of four hours a day
reported by the Television Advertising Bureau (2000). For newspaper use,
ﬁfty-one percent (g = 190) reported that they had “read a local newspaper
yesterday” while 49% (g = 180) said no. This ﬁgure is similar to the 55%
average weekday readership penetration reported by the Newspaper
Association of America (2001).

With the demographic characteristics of the sample outlined, the

results of the research questions and hypotheses are now presented.

Research Question One

The ﬁrst research question asked whether Web use was displacing
printed magazine use. Subjects were asked to estimate whether the time
they spent reading magazines had decreased, increased, or remained the

88

same since becoming a World Wide Web user. While 17% reported that
their magazine use had decreased (g = 64), nearly 13% (p_ = 48) reported
that their magazine use had actually increased. The vast majority (70%,
g = 258) estimated that their magazine use had remained the same.
These data show evidence of both a displacement effect as well as a

complementary relationship. (See Figure 2.)

 

300 ' *
l
250 i

200 "

Count

150 ‘
100 '

501

4

 

 

 

 

 

0
Decreased Increased Remained the Same

Figure 2. Levels of decreasing, increasing and static magazine use of

World Wide Web users.

Research Questions Two and Three

Research question two asked whether traditional magazine
gratiﬁcations still fell into the three main factors identiﬁed in earlier
magazine gratiﬁcations literature — surveillance, diversion and
interaction. Question three asked what Internet uses identiﬁed in more
recent studies also fell into these same gratiﬁcations, and what newly
identiﬁed gratiﬁcation dimensions might stand alone. In sum, how had
magazine gratiﬁcations changed over the years and what effect has new

89

media had on them? And, are there as many Internet gratiﬁcations
dimensions as some research has suggested? Factor analysis and scale
construction might normally be presented in the methods chapter, but
because these research questions were part of the overall purpose of this
study, they are presented here in the results chapter.

Beyond the general theoretical nature of these questions, their
main purpose was to create gratiﬁcation constructs used to calculate the
niche measures for both mediums (research questions three, four and
ﬁve). Because the constructs were created together the answers are
presented together.

Factor analysis. The niche formulae require the gratiﬁcation
constructs be identiﬁed via principal axis factor analysis (Dobos 85
Dimmick, 1988). Some of the statements and constructs have been
present in the literature long enough, and are theoretically sound
enough, to support the use of conﬁrmatory factor analysis. However, due
to the exploratory nature of the newer statements, as well as the cross-
media nature of this study, exploratory factor analysis was used to
identify the gratiﬁcation factors.

For both mediums, data for the 35 survey statements were
submitted to principal axis factor analysis to see if the resulting factors
reﬂected the same dimensions presented in the previous chapter. Like
previous gratiﬁcations studies (Dimmick et al., 2000), a factor loading of
at least .30 (Gorsuch, 1983) was required for a statement to be
considered part of a factor. The initial default analysis (using Varimax
rotation) yielded 15 factors, but only eight factors had Eigenvalues

greater than 1.

9O

Furthermore, because this study compared gratiﬁcations across
two mediums, it was also required that the ﬁnal factors not only load to a
factor for each individual medium — but also that there be another
factor with the same statements loading on the other medium. Without
this a valid comparison could not be made.

The statements were factor analyzed again forcing eight factors,
but still one of the factors had an Eigenvalue of less than one. Seven
factors were then forced. The results of separate factor analysis for both
mediums yielded seven factors for each medium, all with Eigenvalues
greater than one. Twenty-ﬁve of the original statements loaded cleanly to
one medium — with an equivalent factor for the other medium: Web (2 <
.01, d_f = 629, Eigenvalues = 1.01 to 1 1.50) and magazine (9 < .01, d_f =
629, Eigenvalues = 1.13 to 9.73).

Scale construction. As stated above, creating the scales for these
gratiﬁcation dimensions was more difﬁcult than typical exploratory factor
analysis because statements had to load properly on a factor within a
medium, but a similar equivalent factor (with the same statements)
needed to be present on the other medium. There were a few statements
that loaded cleanly in the factor analysis for one medium, but not in the
factor analysis for the other medium. This required striking a balance
between theoretical structure, factor analysis procedures and the
building of scales to prepare data for the niche measurements.

If a statement loaded cleanly for one medium, but loaded on
multiple factors for the other medium, this procedural rule was followed:
It was included in the factor if it increased the alpha reliability of the
scale on the medium where it had not loaded cleanly, ie., where it had
loaded to more than one factor. Otherwise it was excluded from the

91

analysis. For example, the statement, “to feel good,” in factor analysis as
a Web statement loaded cleanly on one factor, but loaded on two factors
as a magazine statement. However, including it in the magazine factor
increased the alpha reliability from .71 to .76 and inclusion in the Web
factor increased the alpha from .76 to .80 for the Web.

Using this procedure, four statements did not load cleanly or
increase the alpha reliability of their factor scale. These were: “offer
immediate news,” “improve the quality of my lifestyle,” “to locate past
and future articles” and “to get info like weather, stocks and sports.”
These items were excluded from further analysis.

To summarize, 31 of the 35 survey statements were used in seven
factor scales for both mediums. These dimension scales were titled:
Surveillance /Keeping informed, Eye Candy, Diversion, Self-actualization,
Communication /Interaction, Career/ Job and Gratiﬁcation opportunities.
The factor loadings and alpha reliabilities of the resulting dimensions are
presented in Tables 5-10. All of the alpha reliability scores were above
.70, ranging from .70 to .84. An asterisk denotes statements that loaded
to more than one factor, but were included in these scales because they

increased reliability.

92

Table 5

Dimension: Surveillance / Keeping informed

Factor loadings for Web gnd magazine gratiﬁcations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Web Magazine
Offer information to pass on to others .49 .43
Help me to understand what’s going on .50 .60
To keep abreast of events .49 .53
To teach me about common issues .45 .39
Offer interesting stories to pass on to others .46 .58
To follow up and get in-depth information .38 .32*
Alpha .84 .82
Table 6
Dimension: Eye candy
Factor loadings for Web and maga_zrine gratiﬁcations
Web Magazine
To look at photos .63 .59
To play .65 .42
To learn about famous people .40 .43
To look at interesting graphics and pages .45 .48*
Alpha .68 .77

93

Table 7

Dimension: Diversion

Factor loadings for Web and magazine gatiﬁcations

 

 

Web Magazine
To combat boredom .34 .57
Help me pass time .42 .62
To relax .49 .54
Alpha .79 .7 6

Note: The Eye Candy and Diversion factors were two separate factors for
Web use, but for magazines these same statements loaded on only one
factor (Diversion). To increase the attenuation of comparison for the
niche calculations, these factors were separated for magazine as well

because the reliability of the scales remained sufﬁcient.

Table 8
Dimension: Self-actualisation

Factor losdings for Web and magsgine gratiﬁcations

 

 

Web Magazine

Offer companionship .57 .43
Help me to gain status .57 .59
To be happy .58 .51
To live out a fantasy .54 .43
To feel important .68 .61
To feel good .65 .45*

Alpha .80 .76

94

Table 9
Dimension: Communication / Interaction

Factor loadings for Web and magazine gratiﬁcations

 

 

 

 

 

 

Web Magazine
To contact authors and editors .61 .68
To meet new people .44* .59
To express my opinion .56 .68
Alpha .72 .74
Table 10
Dimension: Career] Job
Factor loadings for Web and magazingratiﬁcations
Web Magazine
To give me information on job matters .64 .36
Help me with my job .68 .60
To ﬁnd products through advertisements .40 .60
To make buying decisions .49 .61
To locate exactly what I’m looking for .33 .17 *
Alpha .70 .73

95

Table 11
Dimension: Gratiﬁcation opportunities

Egctor loadingsfor Web and maga_gine gratiﬁcations

 

 

Web Magazine
Because they are economical .63 .53
By being readily accessible .42 .61
Because they are convenient .50 .39
To get information quickly .29* .43
Alpha reliability .75 .75

In summary, this scale construction did not comprise the cleanest-
loading factor analysis ever conducted — because statements had to load
internally, but also had to “load” conceptually across two mediums. But
when scale reliability increased with some weaker-loading statements, it
was deemed safer to err on the side of inclusion. And again, it was only a
matter of six statements out of 31.

A fuller meaning of these results will be discussed in the following
chapter. However, in short, the answer to question two seems to be: No,
the number of magazine gratiﬁcation dimensions has not remained the
same in the last 15 or 20 years, but has grown in number along with the
increasingly specialized magazines and categories. As far as lntemet
gratiﬁcations (question 3), while not completely mirroring the factors
suggested by Charney and Greenberg (1999), the results support the idea
of more rather than less. For example, like that study, a Career/ Job

factor was identiﬁed here (which may just be a peculiarity of both the

96

samples). Furthermore, when comparing two media, the presence of a
gratiﬁcation opportunities dimension was conﬁrmed.
Research Question Four

The fourth question asked what the niche breadth was along the
dimensions for both magazine and Web use. Keep in mind that niche
breadth is an indication of the “the degree to which a medium is capable
of gratifying a relatively broad or relatively narrow spectrum of
statements on a gratiﬁcation dimension” (Dimmick et al., 2000, p. 4) The
closer to 1.0, the more generalized a medium is, the wider the sprectrum
of needs it is capable of satisfying. Using the formula identiﬁed and
explained in the literature review and methods chapters, the niche
breadths for magazine use and Web use for each of the seven factors are
presented in Table 12. While context and meaning will be provided in the
following chapter, in total, the Web (.56) has broader use potential than
magazines (.44). The biggest difference was along the
Communication / Interaction dimension where the Web scored .44, while

magazines scored .16.

97

Table 12
Niche breadth for the Web and magazines

 

 

Web Magazine

Surveillance / Keeping informed .66 .6 1
Eye candy .54 .49
Diversion .56 .58
Self-actualization .29 .27
Communication / Interaction .44 . 16
Career/ Job .65 .52
Gratiﬁcation opportunities .79 .44

Total average niche breadth .56 .44

Research Question Five

Using the niche overlap measure, research question ﬁve asked how
similar or different print magazines and Web were perceived to be.
“Overlap is an inverse measure and low values indicate high similarity in
gratiﬁcations obtained from the two media, whereas high values denote
dissimilarity” (Dimmick et al., 2000, p. 232). Low values denote a state of
substitutability (they serve the same functions) while high values suggest
that a state of complementarity exists.

Total as well individual dimension niche overlap scores are
presented in Table 13. While the results will be discussed in the following
chapter, overlap scores from other niche studies would suggest that an
overlap score of 1.31 or less is a strong level of competition or
substitutability. For example, Dimmick stated that an overlap of 1.08

indicated “moderately strong competition between e-mail and the

98

telephone” (Dimmick et al., 2000, p. 238). The Self-actualization
dimension shows particularly high competition with an overlap score of

.75. More on this in the following chapter.

Table 13
Niche overlsp for the Web and magazines

 

 

Overlap

Surveillance / Keeping informed 1. 18
Eye candy 1.29
Diversion 1 .06
Self-actualization .75
Communication / Interaction 1.44
Career / J ob 1.53
Gratiﬁcation opportunities 1.93

Total average overlap 1.31

99

Essearch Question Six

The sixth research question assessed on which gratiﬁcation
dimensions does Web display competitive superiority over print
magazines and vice versa. The results for each of the factors and total
superiority scores produced via Dimmick’s formula are presented in
Table 14. Because superiority is deﬁned as an arithmetic mean, any
differences can be tested for signiﬁcance using a T-test for correlated
groups. As highlighted by the “>” signs in the table, Web superiority was
signiﬁcantly greater in total, as well as on all the factors except one —

diversion.

Table 14

Niche superiority values and T—tests for Web and magazines

 

 

Web Mag. 1; E

Surveillance / Informed 8.38 4.90 5.51 < .0 1 *
Eye candy 5.34 3.78 3.81 <.01*
Diversion 2.93 3.1 l .49 .62
Self-actualization 3.76 2.60 2.87 <.01*
Communication 5.67 0.29 20.39 <.01*
Career/Job 8.96 3.79 10.53 <.01*
Gratiﬁcation opportunities 12.58 1 .26 26.58 < .0 1 *

Superiority average total 6.81 2.82 12.83 <.01*

Note: ﬂ = 370

100

Hypothesis One

Because gratiﬁcations sought and obtained are related to use, and
the niche measures are based on these same gratiﬁcations, this
hypothesis suggested that there was a positive correlation between
lntemet use and total lntemet niche width, niche overlap and
competitive superiority. The hypothesis was supported for total niche
width and total competitive superiority, but not for total niche overlap.

A moderate relationship was present for two of the variables. As
total Internet niche width increased, so did Web use (; = .40, p < .01), as
well as Web competitive superiority (g = .29, p < .01). However, the
relationship between Internet use and niche overlap was not signiﬁcant
Q = .05, p = .31). As shown in Table 15, this was the case for all of the
factors except Communication /Interaction and Gratiﬁcation
Opportunities. On those two dimensions there was a signiﬁcant positive
relationship between use and niche overlap. Because this is an inverse
measure, this denotes a decrease in their similarity as lntemet use

increases.

101

Table 15

Correlations between lntemet use and Internet niche width. overlap and

competitive superiority on individual gatiﬁcation dimensions

 

Width Overlap Superiority

 

Surveillance / Keeping informed .37** -.09 .25**
Eye candy .28** -.03 .21**
Diversion .32** -.08 .22**
Self-actualization .25** -.01 .20**
Communication / Interaction .24** . 16** . 18**
Career/ J ob .3 1 ** .09 . 15**
Gratiﬁcation opportunities .35** .14** .25**

Note: ** signiﬁcant at <.01 level

Hypothesis Two

This hypothesis stated that there was a positive correlation
between magazine use and total magazine niche width, niche overlap and
magazine competitive superiority. Magazine use was measured in two
different ways: subscriptions and single copy purchase. The correlation
between these two use variables was very low and not signiﬁcant (1! =
367, _r; = .05, p = .29). This suggests two different types of magazine

reading habits. Thus, this hypothesis was tested for both items.

Subscribing to magazines. The hypothesis was supported for total
niche width (I = .15, p < .01) and competitive superiority (r; = .13, p =
.01), but not on niche overlap (g = -.07, p = .19). As shown in Table 16,
the hypothesis was supported individually on only a few of the

dimensions, primarily with magazine niche breadth.

102

Table 16
Correlations between magazine subscriptions and total magazine niche

width. overlap and competitive superiority omtiﬁcation dimensions

 

Width Overlap Superiority

 

Surveillance/ Keeping informed .22** - . 08 . 10
Eye candy .03 -.02 .11*
Diversion .09 - . 09 .08
Self-actualization .03 -.04 .08
Communication / Interaction .02 -.00 .03
Career/ Job .20** -.07 .14**
Gratiﬁcation opportunities . 16** -.07 .08

Note: **<.01, *<.05

Singlsmpy purchases. The hypothesis was supported for total
magazine niche width (1‘ = .13, p < .05), but not on overlap (; = -.04, p =
.38) or magazine competitive superiority (g = -.03, p = .60). As shown in
Table 17 below, the hypothesis was supported on even fewer gratiﬁcation

dimensions than for magazine subscriptions.

103

Table 17
Correlations between single copy purchases and total magazine niche

width, overlap and competitive superiority on gr_‘atiﬁcation dimensions

 

Width Overlap Superiority

 

Surveillance / Keeping informed . 10 -.07 -.03
Eye candy .11* -.14** .02
Diversion .05 -.01 -.01
Self-actualization . 10 -.05 -.02
Communication / Interaction . 1 4** .06 .0 1
Career/ Job .05 .00 -.02
Gratiﬁcation opportunities . 10* -.05 -.06

Note: 9 **<.01, *<.05

Hypothesis Three

One of the survey questions was directly related to the time spent
reading magazines since becoming a Web user. Analyzed in groups of
increasing and decreasing use, H3 stated that increasing magazine users
would perceive signiﬁcantly greater magazine niche width, greater
competitive superiority and lesser niche overlap between the two
mediums than decreasing magazine users. This hypothesis was fully
supported. (Presented in Table 18 with the results of Hypothesis four.)
Hypothesis Four

This hypothesis suggested that decreasing magazine users would
perceive signiﬁcantly greater lntemet niche width, competitive
superiority and niche overlap between the two mediums. This hypothesis

was supported for total Internet superiority and total niche overlap, but

104

not for total Internet niche width. On this variable, increasing and
decreasing magazine users perceived the same degree of Internet niche

width. See Table 18 below.

Table 18
Means of increasing and decreasing magazine users for niche measures

 

Increasing (g = 48) Decreasing (g = 64)

 

 

M E M S_D 2
Total magazine niche width .48 .16 .40 .15 **
Total magazine superiority 3.19 2.94 1.58 1.78 **
Total lntemet niche width .64 .18 .60 .18 ns
Total lntemet superiority 6.91 4.68 9.71 4.83 **
Total overlap 1.30 .64 1.58 .66 **

* Signiﬁcant mean difference at .01 level

Hypothesis Five

H5 predicted a positive correlation between age and total magazine
niche breadth, niche overlap and magazine superiority. The older one
was, the more niche breadth and competitive superiority one would
perceive in magazines, as well as less competition between the media.
This hypothesis was not supported for any of the measures: niche
breadth (r; = -.09 p = .10), niche overlap (g = -.08 p = .11) and competitive
superiority (; = .02, p = .69).
Hypothesis Six

This hypothesis posited that there was a negative correlation

between age and total Internet breadth and competitive superiority. This

105

hypothesis was supported. There was a signiﬁcant negative correlation
between age and Internet niche width (g = -17, p < .01) and Internet
superiority (; = -13, p = .01).
Hypothegs Seven

With the idea that heavier newspaper readers may show a
preference for the tactile, printed page, hypothesis seven stated that
newspaper users will perceive greater total magazine width, overlap and
competitive superiority than those who were not regular readers. As
shown in Table 19, this hypothesis was not supported. And in fact, just

the opposite was the case for niche overlap.

Table 19

Means of heavier newspaper rsaders and lesser readers for magazine

niche meagres

 

Readers (_r_1 = 190) Non-readers (p = 180)

 

 

M §D M S_D_ B
Total magazine niche width .45 .16 .42 .16 ns
Total magazine superiority 2.69 2.77 2.95 3.06 ns
Total overlap 1.20 .56 ' 1.42 .60 **

** Signiﬁcant at .01

Hymthesis Eight

This was based on the logical argument that since users with
faster access can visit more sites and download more ﬁles than users
with slower access, they would perceive the Internet to be more helpful,

efﬁcient, etc. Therefore, and more speciﬁcally: users with access speed

106

greater than 56K (faster group) would perceive greater Internet width and
superiority, and less overlap than users with access speed of 56K or less
(slower group). The faster group (p = 115) comprised Cable, T1,
ISDN/ DSL access users while the slower group (p = 220) comprised 56K,
28.8K and slower access users. This hypothesis was not supported for
any of the lntemet niche measures: Internet niche width (ﬂ = 333, _t_ =
1.35, p = .18), Internet superiority (t = 1.48, p = .14), or niche overlap (t =
1.13, p = .26)
Conclusion

This chapter presented the basic answers to the research
questions and the results of hypotheses testing. Both increasing and
decreasing magazine use was found, plus an increasing number of
magazine gratiﬁcations were conﬁrmed. Niche measures were calculated,
showing overall a greater breadth and superiority on the part of the
Internet over magazines. The total niche overlap score also suggested a
degree of substitutability. Hypotheses testing generally conﬁrmed a
relationship between use and niche breadth and superiority measure
scores, but the connection between use and overlap was mixed. A general
connection between other possible indicators such as age, other media
used and access speed was generally not supported as well. A discussion
of these ﬁndings and recommendations for future research are featured

in the following chapter.

107

CHAPTER 5

Discussion

Introduction

After an historical look at how new media affected the magazine
industry, and an explication of niche theory, this study followed a
research plan with the goal of answering one of the most serious
questions facing the magazine industry today. World Wide Web
penetration in the US. has reached levels similar to that of television in
the mid-19508. Will this new medium have a similar negative effect on
certain types of magazines as television did on general interest mass-
market magazines? Or, due to the inherent capabilities and
characteristics of these two mediums, will they ﬁnd a way to coexist? Or,
more importantly, what resource uses should magazines focus on in
order to coexist with the Internet?

This exploratory study sought to ﬁnd some general answers to
these questions. The ﬁndings should help magazine publishers more
fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of new media and then
plan for the future, capitalizing on both the inherent, long—standing
allure of print and the glamour and interactivity of the World Wide Web.

This chapter ﬁrst discusses the research questions and hypotheses
individually. Some broader conclusions and observations are presented
in some additional post analysis and managerial recommendations.
Finally, contributions to theory, weaknesses of the study and suggestions
for future research are offered.

Research Question One
Are Web users reporting less magazine use? Yes, but some are

reporting more magazine use.

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The ﬁnding that 17% report a reduction in magazine use since
becoming Web users suggests a displacement effect. It mirrors other
studies focussed on identifying from where Web users get their time to
spend on the Internet. The American Internet survey reported 16%
reducing their magazine time to ﬁnd time for the Internet (FIN D / SVP,
1997). This study’s pre-survey, conducted in the Spring of 1999, asked a
similar question with 17% reporting a decrease in use and 8% reporting
an increase.

To provide some context, however, the displacement potential of
the Web over magazines may not be as strong as for some other
traditional media. Dimmick’s email-telephone study (Dimmick et al.,
2000) asked a similar question with nearly one half (48%) reporting they
were making fewer long distance calls since becoming email users. Only
8% reported an increase in long distance calls. Meanwhile, television
seems to be taking a big hit as well: 35% of American Internet Survey
respondents reported a decline in television viewing, and in the pre-
survey for this study, 43% reported a decrease. So, the potential
displacement for magazines is perhaps not as great of a threat compared

to some other traditional media.

Conversely in this study, 13% reported an increase in magazine
use, just a few points lower than those reporting less use. These
numbers seem to conﬁrm what some magazine industry observers have
been alluding to. There is both a displacement and a complementary
catalyst effect occurring for users of both mediums. In this case it may
be almost as strong as the potential for displacement. The key question
this raises is what are the speciﬁc differences — demographic and
otherwise — between those citing decreasing and increasing use? What is

109

at the core of the Web creating displacement of magazines versus it
becoming a catalyst for more magazine use? While this study did not set
out to speciﬁcally answer this question, a look at some of the differences
in demographic and media use variables might have perhaps shed some
light on the issue.

However, there was no signiﬁcant difference between increasing
and decreasing users in the amount of time spent on the Web (about 3.5
hours per week). And this ﬁgure for both is signiﬁcantly higher than the
Web use for those who reported their magazine use had remained the
same — about two hours (_df = 2. _E = 5.24, p < .01). This further supports
the idea of both a displacing and complementary relationship. Increasing
(complementarity) and decreasing magazine users (displacement) report
higher Web use while those reporting static magazine use the Web at a
lower level. This complementary, catalyst effect has been noted in a study
by Robinson and Barth (1997). They concluded, “In general, new
technolog users are more likely to use more traditional media as well,
particularly the printed media” (pg. 80).

A continuing general lack of differences between the increasing and
decreasing magazine use groups held true for other basic variables such
as age, the number of years they had been on the Web as well as broad
categories of purposes for magazine and Web use. So, the reasons behind
either a displacement or complementary effect perhaps lie within more
speciﬁc use variables. This will be addressed a little later in the
discussion.

Research Questions Two and Three

Just as media have increased in number and specialization, so

have the gratiﬁcations sought by users. For magazines, no longer do

110

gratiﬁcations fall into the three basic categories of survelliance, diversion
and interaction as used in earlier cross-media studies. The world is more
complicated and so are media gratiﬁcations.

While the original magazine surveillance statements still loaded on
surveillance, the original magazine interaction dimension disappeared,
with its statements loading to surveillance. This dimension emphasized
gathering information and staying informed for general purposes. This is
one of the basic cognitive, information-seeking dimensions found in
virtually all media gratiﬁcation studies. Meanwhile, an “updated”
interaction dimension, comprising statements emphasizing
communication appeared. At the core of this dimension are statements
related to new media interactivity — one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-
to-many.

As with other studies, diversion was a dimension for both
mediums, but the Internet apparently offered more, with the same
statements that loaded to a single dimension for magazines, loading to
two factors for the Web. One was identiﬁed as diversion and the other as
eye candy. It could also be argued that the Self-actualization dimension
is another type of diversion, certainly affective in nature like diversion
and eye candy, but with an emphasis on “me.” In sum, affective and
diversionary functions have become increasingly specialized.

Another example of this increasing specialization is the presence of
a job / career dimension. In earlier magazine studies, the job and career
statements loaded on surveillance, grouped with other cognitive,
information-gathering statements. Today, these and newly gathered
statements load on a new dimension. This supports the ﬁndings of the

Charney and Greenberg study. As media become more specialized, trade

lll

"7"

Ilia—”ft!

magazines and Web sites have become increasingly important to job
survival and career planning in the last two decades. Magazines and the
Internet serve a unique function — different from other mass media like
television and radio — in this more cognitive area. Thus, the presence of
this dimension.

However, it should be noted that this Career/ Job dimension may
just be an artifact of the samples used in this study and the Charney and
Greenberg study. This sample comprised a group of semi-professional
and professional musicians, while the Internet study used college
students, many of which were about to enter the job market for the ﬁrst
time. These characteristics may have led to this job /career dimension for

these two studies alone and may not be generalizable.

As with several other niche studies comparing new and old media,
a gratiﬁcation opportunities dimension was also identiﬁed. Several
statements relating to efﬁciency and convenience gathered in the
qualitative pre-survey loaded on this dimension. This ﬁnding supports
the notion that when comparing two mediums with a degree of functional
equivalence, gratiﬁcation opportunities play a signiﬁcant role in choice.
New media researchers should include this dimension in further single-
and multi-medium gratiﬁcation studies.

One ﬁnal note is the between-medium differences in the variance
explained among these dimensions. For the Web, the
surveillance / keeping informed dimension explained 33% of the variance,
while for magazines it only explained 4%. For the Web none of the other
dimensions accounted for any more than 8% of the variance explained.
The highest for magazines was the career dimension, explaining 28% of
the variance. Meanwhile, for the Web this dimension accounted for only

112

3% of the variance. The high variance explained for magazines on this
dimension may again be an artifact of the sample, with these subjects
relying on a plurality of trade and special interest magazines regarding
their profession. But if this were the case it seems the variance
accounted for by the Web should be higher on this dimension as well.
These large differences in the variance explained suggest magazines and
the Web are used in dissimilar ways. However, the variance explained
between mediums on the remaining dimensions were relatively close,
ranging from zero to a couple of percentage points. This denotes similar
use as well.

In sum, mass media gratiﬁcations are increasingly complicated
and difﬁcult to pin down, especially in a cross-media study such as this.
But the general trend here is that, as media become increasingly
specialized over time, the gratiﬁcations sought by users become
increasingly specialized as well. Furthermore, the relative efﬁciency of a
medium — gratiﬁcation opportunities — is a deﬁning characteristic
among media. These dimensions of gratiﬁcations sought and gratiﬁcation
opportunities set the stage for calculation and interpretation of the niche
measures.

Research Question Four

Question four utilized the niche breadth formulae to measure the
relative generalism or specialism of magazines and the Web. Higher
scores denote a wider spectrum of gratiﬁcations offered by that medium,
while lower scores indicate fewer. In total, the Web serves a wider
spectrum of needs and gratiﬁcations (niche breadth = .56), than

magazines (niche breadth = .44).

113

What is most newsworthy here is that the Web provides a wider
array of gratiﬁcations on all of the dimensions except one — diversion.
Magazines (.58) are perceived to satisfy a wider degree of gratiﬁcations
associated with diversion than the Web (.56). While the scores on most of
the dimensions were relatively close, they were substantially different on
two factors. Magazines’ lowest breadth score was on the
Communication /Interaction dimension (.17 vs. .44 for the Web) while the
Web’s highest by far was on gratiﬁcation opportunities (.79 vs. .44 for
magazines). The Web’s substantially higher breadth scores on these two
dimensions denote its ability to excel in the area of communications and
utility — obviously due to its arsenal of new media characteristics.

Meanwhile, magazines should emphasize and capitalize on their
diversionary uses. This ﬁnding is especially interesting in light of the
trade-oriented demographics of subjects. Among a more generalizable
sample, the diversionary capabilities of magazines might have been
appreciated even more.

Research Question Five

This question measured the level of competition, or perceived
similarity, between these mediums. Remember again that overlap is an
inverse measure; the higher the score the less intense the competition,
the less similar the mediums are perceived to be. A score of zero
indicates complete similarity. However, the calculation is relative to the
scale used to measure the gratiﬁcations. In this case a ﬁve-point scale
was used so a score of 4.0 (5 minus 1) would indicate total dissimilarity.
This makes it difﬁcult to compare these ﬁndings to the overlap scores of
other niche studies because different studies use different scales. But by
converting the score to a percentage one is able to provide some context

114

in comparing these niche overlap scores to those in other studies.
Standardizing them in this manner, the competition can be characterized
as strong to moderately strong for total overlap, and on a majority of the
dimensions as well.

Self-actualization is the dimension in which magazines and the
Web are perceived to be the most similar by far (overlap = .7 5). This
dimension includes a number of affective gratiﬁcation statements such
as “to feel good,” “to be happy” and “to live out a fantasy” and others. The
next highest level of competition is along the diversion dimension (1.06),
another dimension with affective leanings. Apparently users see
magazines and the Web in a similar light when satisfying these types of
emotional gratiﬁcations.

Dimensions displaying a relatively lesser degree of similarity are
those having more to do with functionality and cognitive activities:
communication (1.44), career (1.53) and gratiﬁcation opportunities (1.93,
the highest overlap score). As with niche breadth, the perceived
dissimilarity along the communication and gratiﬁcation opportunities
dimensions can be attributed to the inherent differences in
communication characteristics of the two mediums. Thus, they are
perceived to be more dissimilar. The dissimilarity for the career
dimension may have to do with the two mediums being used for distinct
functions. For example, magazines may be used for job-oriented
diversion, scanning and surveillance, while the Web is used for searching
for employment and ﬁnding very speciﬁc information related to products,
etc.

As niche theory suggests, competition decreases as the mediums
ﬁnd their respective niches. Competition is stronger along those

115

dimensions where magazines tend to offer the wider spectrum of
gratiﬁcations (niche width). It is in these areas that the two mediums are
perceived to be more similar.

Research Question Six

While niche overlap measures the degree of perceived similarity,
and niche breadth indicates which medium offers more gratiﬁcations,
they do not measure which medium is superior at ﬁlling the particular
gratiﬁcations. This question was answered with Dimmick’s competitive
superiority measure. In total, the Web was considered to be nearly two-
and-one-half times superior to magazines. The Web was signiﬁcantly
superior along all of the dimensions again except one — diversion. This
was also the case with the niche breadth measures, and indicates the
magazine medium’s stronghold in ﬁnding coexistence with the Web. As
mentioned earlier, a less career-oriented sample may have been even
more favorable along this dimension.

But the Web was perceived to be signiﬁcantly superior on all the
other dimensions. And again like niche breadth, the Web superiority
scores dwarfed magazine scores on the new media-oriented dimensions:
communication (5.67 vs. .29) and gratiﬁcation opportunities (12.58 vs.
1.26) — not a surprising ﬁnding. The other two dimensions with the
greatest differences were surveillance and career -— two dimensions that
again lean towards cognitive information gathering. Overall, these scores
show that the Web is a formidable foe — especially in the cognitive realm
of information gathering and communication management.

Hymthesis One

The main purpose of the hypotheses was to identify the media use

and demographic variables that seemed to be driving the niche scores.

116

The goal was to shed further light on what was behind increasing,
decreasing or static magazine use. That hypothesis one was supported
for niche breadth and competitive superiority is not surprising. The
overall assumption is that gratiﬁcations drive use. Therefore, use
increases as individuals perceive the Web to offer an increasingly wider
array of gratiﬁcations in an increasingly superior way. This was the case
in total and for each dimension, a testament to the “mother of all media”
nickname given by some to the Web.

And while the relationship between total niche overlap and Web
use was not signiﬁcant, it was in the two areas where the Web and
magazines are most different on their face — the two new media
dimensions of communication and gratiﬁcation opportunities. As use of
the Web increases so does the perception that they are increasingly
dissimilar. These are the two areas where competition decreases as use
of the Web increases. As users become more familiar with one medium
they recognize and appreciate its differences from other media — good
and bad. Interactivity and cognitive task efﬁciency are the two most
obvious differences between the Web and magazines. So it is along these
two dimensions that we see perceived dissimilarity increasing
(competition decreasing) as Web use increases. In sum, the general
results of this hypothesis would support the idea of the Web displacing
magazines for those who increasingly used the Web. And the Web’s
competitive superiority over magazines reported early certainly supports
the propensity to do so.

Hymthesis Two

Was this same idea of the increasing use of one medium leading to

increasing niche scores the same for magazine use? This hypothesis

117

predicted the same as hypothesis one, but for magazine use. The very
low and insigniﬁcant correlation between the two questions used to
measure magazine readership supported the idea of two distinct types of
magazine users — a more committed reader who subscribed and a less
committed single copy buyer. Thus, the hypothesis was tested for both
scales.

As with hypothesis one, as subscriptions increased, users
perceived magazines to offer a wider degree of gratiﬁcations and were
judged increasingly superior. However, the perceived similarity of the two
mediums did not change signiﬁcantly as magazine subscriptions
increased.

For the less committed single copy user, as single copy purchases
increased magazines were also perceived to offer an increasing number of
gratiﬁcations. However, the perception of similarity (overlap) did not
change as well as the perceived superiority of magazines. The fact that
superiority did not increase as single copy purchases increased is
compatible with the idea that these magazine buyers are generally not as
committed and not as “believing” in magazines as those who increasingly
subscribed.

As with hypothesis one, no substantial trends were seen in the
correlations for the individual dimensions. However, one may be worthy
of note. The width of gratiﬁcation opportunities increased as single copy
purchases increased. Perhaps, these less committed users appreciated
the relative convenience of going out, ﬁnding and purchasing a single
copy of a magazine, when they were in the mood to really want one — a
particular subject matter, article, etc. Standing in front of a large
newsstand with hundreds of magazines provides a picture of breadth.

118

Hypotheses Three and Four

These are probably the most telling of all the hypotheses. They
addressed the characteristics of displacement or complementarity
between the two mediums. The grouping variable asked if magazine use
had increased, decreased or remained the same since adoption of the
Internet. While decreasing use obviously denotes displacement,
increasing use suggests a complementary relationship that is even
stronger than for those whose magazine use had remained the same. For
those increasingly using magazines after adoption of the Web, the new
medium is more than complimentary; it apparently serves as a catalyst
for more magazine use.

What makes this especially interesting is that the difference
between increasing (13%) and decreasing (17%) is relatively close. At
least some degree of complementarity exists for that vast majority of
magazine and Web users (70%). And as was mentioned earlier, there is
no difference between increasing and decreasing users with the amount
of time they have been using the Web. So, it is not as if magazine use
increases (or remains the same) and then it drops off as Web users
become increasingly mature — or vice-versa.

More support for the idea of displacement as well as a
complementary catalyst is seen when the statistics for static magazine
users are included. It also helps explain why perceived similarity between
the mediums did not seem to be a factor in the ﬁrst several hypotheses
related only to magazine or Web use. Table 20 shows the mean
differences in niche scores for decreasing, increasing and static users.

Standard deviations are not included this time to promote simplicity.

119

Table 20
Means of decreasing, increasing and static maga_zine users for total

niche measurg

 

 

Decrease Increase Same
(r_r = 48) (p = 64) (n = 258)
M M M
Total magazine width .40* .48 .44
Total lntemet width .64 .60 .53*
Total niche overlap 1.58* 1.30 1.24
Total magazine superiority 1.58* 3.19 3.05
Total Web superiority 9.71* 6.91 6.05

Note: * Denotes that the mean is signiﬁcantly different from both other

means at the .01 level of probability.

Here we see several patterns of interest. First, the evidence of a
displacement effect for decreasing magazine users (17% of the sample) is
fairly obvious. These individuals perceive magazines to be more
specialized, less superior; and less similar to the Web (competition has
decreased). For these users, magazines are settling into a more
specialized niche, a more specialized set of fewer gratiﬁcations.
Conversely, for these same decreasing print users, the Web is superior in
satisfying a wider array of gratiﬁcations — a more generalized medium
with superior characteristics. Competition is decreasing as well;
decreasing users perceive the two mediums to be less similar than the
other groups. Other niche studies have shown that over time, the level of
competition decreases as the respective media settle into their niches.

Again, more evidence for displacement.

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But there is also some evidence of complementarity. First, keep in
mind that 83% of the sample comprised those magazine users whose use
had either risen or remained the same. This alone points to some degree
of complementarity between the two mediums. But promoting the idea of
a catalyst is that the Internet breadth score of both increasing and
decreasing magazine users is higher than the group whose magazine use
had remained the same. Increasing magazine users perceived a
signiﬁcantly higher degree of gratiﬁcations offered by the Web — they
know what it has to offer — but for some reason their use of magazines
has increased. The individuals have increased print media use since
adopting the Internet.

The other trend evident here is that on the magazine niche
measures, increasing magazine user scores were higher than static
magazine users — but their lntemet niche scores were higher as well.
This also supports the notion of the Web acting as a catalyst for more
use for this group

In sum, the displacement effect seems to be stronger for decreasing
users, while the effect of the Web as a catalyst for increasing magazine
use is somewhat present, but not as strong. The question that arises is
what is driving displacement? And what keeps others in a static
magazine use (complementarity) or increasing magazine use (catalyst)
mode? The remaining hypotheses did not provide any obvious answers to
these two important questions.

Hypotheses Five and Six

There was no signiﬁcant relationship between the total niche
measures for magazines and age. Thus, age is not an indicator that an
individual’s perception of magazines becoming an increasingly

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generalized medium, less similar to the Web and more superior.
Meanwhile, there was a signiﬁcant negative correlation, albeit moderate,
between age and Internet width and superiority. This indicates that as
one increases in age, the relative generalism and superiority of Web
decreases. Conversely, the younger you are the wider the array of
gratiﬁcations the Web offers in an increasingly superior manner. This
provides some support for the idea that as teenagers age and become
adults, they will show a tendency to prefer the Web over print media.
And, since the opposite was not the case for magazines, this is probably
not an effect of age, but a generational cohort effect brought on by the
Web becoming a regular media appliance in the late 19908.
Hypotheses Seven

Like age, a preference for print — as measured by regular
newspaper reading —— did not indicate a preference for magazines. There
was no signiﬁcant difference between heavier and lighter newspaper
users in their perception of magazine breadth and superiority. But in
terms of similarity of the two mediums, a ﬁnding in direct opposition to
the hypothesis was signiﬁcant. Newspaper readers perceived signiﬁcantly
greater similarity between the mediums than did non—readers. Regular
newspaper readers perhaps appreciate the more affective components of
habitual newspaper reading differently than the immediate, targeted
news functions of the Web. However, there was no signiﬁcant difference
between newspaper readers and non-readers on total Internet niche
width or total lntemet competitive superiority. This may be because the
speciﬁc news-oriented statements (breaking news, sports scores) did not

load and were not included in the niche measures. These statements will

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be appropriate when a niche study comparing newspapers and the Web
is conducted.
Hypothesis Eigm

Finally, the idea that faster access would create a preference for
the Web was not supported either. Those accessing at speeds higher than
56K did not perceive the Web to be any more general, superior, or
dissimilar to magazines than those accessing at 56K or lower. Thus,
quick accessibility and speed of use does not seem to be driving
preferences. The perceived differences must derive from speciﬁc content
or uses or other needs and preferences within the individual.

Post Analysis

Upon answering the research questions and analyzing the
hypotheses, we see some general trends, but no “smoking gun.” In
general, the Web is seen to offer a wider array of gratiﬁcations in a
superior manner by increasing, decreasing and static magazine users.
And increasing magazine users spend more time on the Web than static
magazine users. The nagging question of what is driving increasing or
decreasing magazine use was still not sufﬁciently answered.

Another way to explain the variance is by examining which
dimensions contributed to the superiority ratings on both mediums for
increasing and decreasing magazine users. This attenuates which media
gratiﬁcations are most or least important to decreasing and increasing
magazine users. Similar to other gratiﬁcation niche studies, this was
accomplished by examining whether the superiority rating “agreed” with
either increasing or decreasing use. For example, a “match” occurred
when an individual using magazines less rated the Web superior on a
particular statement. Conversely, a match also occurred when an

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increasing magazine user rated magazines superior on a statement. In
other words, this “matching” system identiﬁed which ratings given a
medium were in agreement with an individual’s self-assessed use
patterns.

Examining these matches along each dimension helps identify
those factors most related to driving increasing or decreasing use. As a
further means of seeing differences and similarities, a match was also
given when a static user’s superiority score for magazines was higher
than that of the Web on that dimension. The results of this analysis are

presented in Table 25.

Table 25

Percentge of medium superiority scores matching self-assessed use

patterns of decreasing, increasingand static magazine use since
adoption of the Web

 

 

 

Decrease Increase Static

“Match” “Match” “Match”

(p = 48) (p = 64) (n = 258)
Survelliance 80% 44% 45%
Eye Candy 64% 56% 56%
Diversion 6 1% 79% 72%
Communication 78% 33% 28%
Self-actualization 56% 70% 7 1 %
Career 7 8% 38% 36%
Gratiﬁcation Opportunities 94% 23% 14%
Total 92% 29% 25%

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Those dimensions with the most substantial differences and
similarities are insightful in explaining the perceived differences,
advantages and disadvantages between magazines and the Web. For
those decreasing in their use of magazines, the highest percentage of
Web superiority matches occur among the more cognitive, information-
gathering dimensions (surveillance and career) as well as the
communications management dimensions (communication and
gratiﬁcation opportunities). This supports the idea that individuals
reporting decreasing magazine use are more oriented towards cognitive
information-seeking functions of these media. The Web is more suitable
for these types of activities for these individuals.

Meanwhile, increasing magazine users matched most highly in the
more affective dimensions of diversion, eye candy and self-actualization.
These individuals are more oriented towards these types of magazine
functions.

Not surprisingly, static magazine users were somewhat of a
mixture with a tendency for higher magazine superiority matches on the
several more affective dimensions (similar to increasing users) and even
lower magazine superiority matches on the cognitive and communication
dimensions (more similar to decreasing users). That static users matched
most like decreasing users in communications and gratiﬁcation
opportunities — but still remained static in their magazine use — would
indicate that these dimensions of communication management have the
least impact.

The niche width scores reported earlier (RQ 6) further substantiate
this idea of characteristic differences in three broad categories —

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cognitive, affective and communication management. On average, the
greatest differences in niche width (magazines lower) were seen in the
more cognitive and communication management dimensions while
differences in niche breadth were closest (magazines higher) among the
more affective dimensions. This same trend holds true for the original
niche superiority scores as well. The greatest differences were along the
more cognitive and communication dimensions.

Finally, in examining the niche overlap scores the general trend
was the two mediums perceived to be more similar among the affective
dimensions (lower overlap scores) and less similar among the cognitive
and communication management dimensions. The dissimilarities
support the idea that magazines are ﬁnding a specialized niche as a
medium associated with more affective gratiﬁcations.

Summary of Findings

Based on the data analysis of the niche measure scores and
hypotheses above, the following observations are made.

1) The Web is displacing magazines for a relatively small
percentage of individuals (17%). However, this is nearly offset by
another group of individuals for which Web use seems to be
acting as a catalyst for increasing print magazine use (13%).
Meanwhile, the vast majority (7 0%) ﬁnds a complementary
relationship between the two mediums, as their magazine use
has remained the same after adoption of the lntemet.

2) In general, the Web is perceived to offer a wider array of
gratiﬁcations than magazines, and delivers them in a superior
fashion. As Web use increases, these perceptions increase as
well (or vice-versa since no causal order has been established).

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3) The greatest differences between magazines and the Web in
gratiﬁcations offered and superiority tend to be in the cognitive,
information-gathering and communication management
functions. Meanwhile, the least differences appear in the more
affective (emotional) and more diversionary functions.

4) In general, the Web and magazines are perceived to be least
similar in these information-gathering and communication
management functions. They are perceived to be more similar in
the affective, or diversionary functions.

5) Decreasing magazine users place more emphasis on the
superiority of the Web’s information-gathering and
communication management characteristics.

6) Increasing and static magazine users seem to place more
emphasis on the affective functions of magazines.

7) Supporting the notion of a catalyst effect, increasing magazine
readers use the Internet at the same rate as decreasing
magazine users, both of which are higher than static magazine
users.

8) Increasing and decreasing magazine use is not driven by age, or
by how long they’ve been using the lntemet

9) A key variable that seems to be driving increasing or decreasing
magazine use is whether individuals prefer to engage in these
more affective functions in a tactile (print) or electronic
(environment).

The ﬁndings of this study, coupled with the observations above,

suggest several recommendations for magazine publishing professionals.

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Managerial Implications

Returning to a few of the basic, general questions raised in the
justiﬁcation section of chapter one, several professional
recommendations can be made. The original general questions were 1)
What exactly are the added dimensions of the Web? 2) What comprises
the continuing lure of print? 3) How do they overlap? Having completed
this study, the answers to these general questions provide information so
magazine professionals can make appropriate strategic decisions.

Added dimensions of the Web. First, and most obvious, the Web
offers the interactive communication capabilities associated with new
media. No study was needed to come to this conclusion. But decreasing
magazine users apparently ﬁnd these capabilities more important than
static and increasing magazine users. Thus, the advice for magazine
publishers is to associate interactive functions of the Web with the brand
name of their magazine. For example, rather than partnering with
established new media companies, magazine publishers should build
stronger associations between their brand names and the Web by
incorporating message boards, chat rooms, email addresses and other
communication devices into their Web sites. They should also bridge the
print and online world with email addresses and other unique interactive
functions promoted heavily in the printed magazine; again, connecting
the brand name to the communication functions of the Web.

This leads to the second added dimension, theoretically identiﬁed
as gratiﬁcation opportunities. The Web offers economy, accessibility and
convenience. Magazine Web sites should be more than just extensions of
the printed magazine content; they should also act as a portal to the Web

for information and activities associated with the general subject matter

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of the magazine. This is sometimes difﬁcult to do because of competition
between different sites, and publishers not wanting to “send readers
away from our content.” But by offering portal-type functions on its Web
site, a magazine can associate its brand name with the accessibility and
convenience of the Web.

Like the function above, the other substantial added dimension of
the Web tends to be in the more cognitive functions associated with
direct information seeking. And again, the superiority of the Web in this
area seemed to be more important for decreasing magazine users. Thus,
magazines should incorporate appropriate information-seeking functions
into their Web sites. These might include such things such as searchable
back issues, databases of price listings and product information, and
other highly detailed information. The goal here is to satisfy visitors when
they are in an information seeking, as opposed to a diversionary mode.
There should also be timely “news” updates to satisfy this appetite for
surveillance as well. Again, these strategies work to associate the brand
name with the unique functions of the Web. Does a magazine have to
give all this content away for free? No. It can provide a certain level of
free content, but then offer deeper information to subscribers (print or
online) only — more on this in a moment.

In sum, this study’s ﬁndings suggest that the most important
added dimensions of the Web are new media interactivity, convenience
and detailed information.

The Lure of Print. Because so many individuals are reporting their
magazine use to have either remained the same or actually increased
after adoption of the Web, the lure of print certainly continues. This

study’s ﬁndings suggest that it is in the more affective, diversionary and

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internally oriented functions that magazines still reign — or at least have
the opportunity to do so. These areas seemed most important for static
and increasing users. Apparently, for most individuals, the more affective
functions (content and otherwise) offered by the Web may be more
similar to television viewing than to reading.

This suggests that magazine publishers should emphasize using
affective, diversionary content in their printed magazines combined with
deeper information on their Web sites. Obviously this does not mean that
every article in a print magazine should be about play or recreation. This
simply means articles should lean towards fulﬁlling affective
gratiﬁcations. Articles can provide a more affective experience on the
printed page leading to related, but deeper, more cognitive content on the
lntemet.

An excellent example of this is what the editors of Gig Magazine
began doing recently (after the conclusion of this study). For product
buyer’s guides, which are relatively cognitive in nature, a broader
introduction and lighter synopses are featured in the magazine with color
photos. The print article then extends onto the Web where the very
detailed listings of many more products are listed. In other words, the
print portion of the article leans towards being more affective and
diversionary in nature, while the Web portion provides the detail for
cognitive information searches. A similar approach is also being used for
its “Gigging In” city guides. The printed magazines feature a broader
overview of a city — almost a travel article — while the core listings of
clubs and contacts to get gigs is available on the Web site. Other

magazines are adopting a similar approach.

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Where theVLoverlap. The ﬁnal broad, managerial question asked
was in what areas do the Web and magazines overlap? As the niche
overlap scores indicate, the areas where they tend to overlap more
strongly are along the affective functions, where the two mediums seem
most alike. And as was shown by matching self-assessed use patterns
with superiority scores, it seems that an individual’s preference for
affective content — either in online or in tactile form — may be driving
magazine use. So, by further distinguishing this affective content in the
future, in either print vs. online form, magazine publishers can reduce
the area of overlap. In short they need to differentiate the affective
content of magazines, while presenting a different type of affective
content on its branded Web site. What that content is exactly has not
been determined at this point.

Generally, affective content is likely less expensive to produce than
information-rich content. Thus, publishers can tend to offer affective
content on a Web site for free; thereby drawing these types into their
brand name. They might also keep magazine readers who are
abandoning the tactile experience by improving and further
distinguishing the affective content in the printed version of the
magazine. All the while they can give some information-rich content
away, but keep the majority of this type of content for subscribers or
paying online readers.

The Wall Street Journal is another example, albeit somewhat
extreme, of this idea. Understanding the differences between cognitive
and affective content helps one understand why this business model
works for the WSJ. Reading the Wall Street Journal is more of a cognitive,

information-seeking experience than an affective, diversionary one. Thus,

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while most print publishers have been unsuccessful at creating a
proﬁtable Web model, the WSJ has been successful because they have
provided both a free and paid area, each with its own type of content.
The free area comprises less-information rich (somewhat more affective
content) while the paid area features the hard, cognitive data that visitors
will pay for. Distinguishing between these two types of information is key
to creating a successful business model for the Web. Billboard Magazine
and other specialized publications have also been able to offer a
combination of free and paid online content, with the deeper online
content being made available as an added value to paid print
subscribers, or as a separate paid online service.

People are not as used to paying for more affective, diversionary
content. For example, feature ﬁlms are for the most part a purely
diversionary, affective experience, and people are willing to pay the price
of admission. However, radio and television, which feature mostly
affective content are based on advertiser-only revenues (and the
information-rich content like news shows are supported and subsidized
by the revenues from the affective content).

This idea is in some ways analogous to the broadcast and cable
television industries — although television features mostly affective
content. At one end of the spectrum is broadcast television, featuring
basically more general, affective content sponsored by advertisers.
Viewers put up with the advertising to gain access to the free content. At
the other end of the spectrum is subscription-based movie channels,
such as HBO and Cinemax featuring differentiated, but still mostly
affective content. In between you have the advertising-based specialty

channels — mostly offering more specialized, affective content. Due to

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the more specialized and distinguished nature of this content, viewers
are willing to both put up with the advertisements and pay an additional
cable television subscription fee, at a much lower cost per channel than
the HBQs.

Now, apply this general idea to magazines and their Web sites. At
one end of the spectrum you have free content on the advertiser-
supported Web site that is relatively more generalized and affective. Like
broadcast television, people put up with the advertising in exchange for
the free content. At the other end of the spectrum you have perhaps
totally subscriber-supported content on the Web that is information-rich,
more cognitive and more specialized. People are willing to pay for this
information, and may not want to be bothered by advertisers. In the
middle you have print magazine subscribers who appreciate all aspects
of the subject matter and will pay for the printed version (with
advertising) and for additional non-sponsored content online at a
relatively lower rate (included with their subscription).

In another example of this idea, the formerly free, online-only
publication Slate recently announced a two-tiered plan offering paid and
free content (Press, 2001, March 21). Readers who pay an annual
subscription fee of $30 will access the premium version, which blocks
out larger ads (that appear on the free, lower-tiered version of the site).
The paid portion of the site also includes feature stories not available on
the free site. The problem here is that there is no printed version of the
magazine; this is where conventional magazines have a vast advantage,
in the long run, over e-zines. They can offer exponentially more value —
different types of affective and cognitive content — with both a printed

and online version.

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In sum, what print magazine publishers can do better than e-zines
is create a more effective combination of both free and paid cognitive and
affective content in print and online form. First off the less costly,
affective content can be available for free, but supported by sponsors
(like television). This can include many affective new media functions as
well. But available to subscribers (print or online) is the information-rich
content that is more expensive to produce. Meanwhile, the printed
magazine should emphasize and capitalize on the affective nature of the
tactile reading experience, with enough cognitive information to keep
readers satisﬁed and pull them onto the Web — when they are in an
information-seeking mode. This combination strikes a balance between
free and paid, and creates a ﬁnancially sound business model. As we
have seen in the recent collapse of many of dot-coms it is impossible to
give content away and somehow make a proﬁt on market share alone.
The results of this study help publishers focus on what type of
information to give away free and what to charge for. The key for
magazines is to ﬁnd the right balance both in degree and type of content
-—- affective vs. cognitive — that is offered in the printed version of the

magazine and on its Web site.

Contribution to Communications Theog

This study has made several useful contributions to
communications and media theory. First, like several other media niche
studies, it has supported the presence of a gratiﬁcation opportunities
dimension. This factor stems from the perceived accessibility,
convenience and utility of a medium in obtaining gratiﬁcations. Scholars
using the gratiﬁcations model to study media use are well advised to
gather and include opportunity statements in their survey instruments.

134

Secondly, the relatively successful use of niche theory to help
explain choice and use between competing media adds validity to the
continuing use of this population ecolog model to study media. This is
further enhanced because many of the ﬁndings are logically consistent
with some magazine industry practices. And because the vast majority of
media niche theory work has been done by or in association with John
Dimmick, an independent researcher’s successful use of this theory adds
further validity to the use of niche constructs.

Finally, this study provided some useful methodological ﬁndings
for lntemet research. Somewhat unexpectedly, the purposive Internet
sample was not made up of relatively heavy lntemet users. The
signiﬁcant differences between the non-random Internet sample and the
random sample of subscribers were minor. This is not to say that
Internet researchers should abandon random samples, or that
convenient lntemet samples can be generalized to a wider non-Internet
population. But when conducting low-risk research about the lntemet, a
purposive lntemet sample may be just as effective as a more costly
random sample. This probably has more managerial implications for
magazine professionals than anyone else. In the case of specialized
audiences, and as Internet penetration increases, the Web is an
increasingly valid method to collect useful data in a quick and cost-
effective manner.

Weaknesses of the Study

As mentioned previously, one weakness of this study is in its
external validity. Since a specialty magazine sample was used, the
ﬁndings can only technically be generalized to that population. However,
it is hoped that the choice of this magazine — one with above average

135

Internet use levels, but not extremely high — would be fairly
representative of both business and special-interest consumer
magazines. If anywhere, the ﬁndings are least generalizable to the largest
circulation consumer magazines.

Another speciﬁc weakness in terms of generalizibility is the average
age of the sample. It skewed older. While the average age of lntemet
users is increasing, it is still in the mid-308. The mean age of this sample
was 41. As was mentioned earlier, from time to time age was included as
a possible moderating variable in a number of statistical tests, but no
substantial trends were identiﬁed. However, it could be that those trends
would have been heavier and more signiﬁcant if this sample would have
been more reﬂective of the average Internet audience.

Other weaknesses of this study have more to do with internal
validity. For example, scales could have been included or improved upon
to provide more attenuated measurement as well as a better accounting
for possible confounding variables. A case in point: How well did subjects
differentiate between Web versus Internet use upon reading the
deﬁnitions at the beginning of the survey? It would have likely been
better to ask for total Internet use hours, then ask for a breakdown of
time by activity — surﬁng, email, chat rooms, etc. Perhaps some of the
ratings, especially on the more affective statements, came from their
feelings on lntemet uses that were not being directly investigated.
Controlling for more speciﬁc types of lntemet use may have been helpful
in even more focused ﬁndings.

Also, the question of whether subjects had spent more, less or the
same amount of times reading magazines was relative. A useful
mediating variable in the analysis may have been whether the subject

136

was a light, medium or heavier magazine user at the time of adopting the
Internet. Perhaps the Internet’s effect of displacement or complimentarity
was dependent on their relative level of magazine use in the ﬁrst place. It
could very well be that the displacement effect was more inﬂuential on
originally heavy magazine users, while the catalyst effect was most
inﬂuential on originally medium users. This could have been a powerful
variable to control for.

Another dimension here may have been time spent withmagazines
versus the number of magazines they read. Perhaps individuals were
spending more time, but with a fewer number of magazines or vice
versus. This could be a distinguishing characteristic between affective
magazine browsing (perhaps the same amount of time with a greater
number of titles) and cognitive information-seeking (perhaps more time
with fewer titles).

Finally, as Dimmick and others have pointed out, niche theory is
better suited for anticipation than prediction. “It is more useful for
describing and explaining the past and present than for making long-
term predictions about the fate of media guild members” (Dimmick 85
Rothenbuhler, 1984, p. 118). Niche theory is weak at predicting
immediate, speciﬁc individual behavior. Its strength is identifying and
analyzing broad trends at the population level.

Having identiﬁed these weaknesses, following are suggestions for

future research that this study might inspire.

Suggestions for Future Research
The most obvious research the results of this study lead to is a
similar panel study in 18 months. Other niche studies have replicated

after 18 months to see if the trends identiﬁed are becoming more of a

137

reality. Both street and email addresses have been retained for a possible
study to this end. Another similar study should be conducted comprising
newspaper readers and lntemet news site users. As noted in chapter
one, newspapers face a different threat from the Web than that of
magazines because magazines have not traditionally been the deliverers
of timely information. In the meantime, newspapers are positioned more
strongly than broadcast media to provide text-based information on their
Web sites. Will the same rough categories of affective and cognitive
content play a role as has been suggested by this study?

Another direction these ﬁndings point to is in the area of content.
This study suggests that readers use and perceive magazines and Web
sites to be appropriate and efﬁcient in speciﬁc situations. Magazines, for
example, seemed to be often noted as diversionary devices. One question
this raises is what is the relationship between the experience of diversion
and the tactile nature of the printed page? In other words, what are the
deﬁning characteristics of the affective “reading” experience in the
printed vs. online format. And even more basic than this, what exactly is
affective or information-rich content? These terms have been used in a
broad conceptual way, but a study identifying speciﬁc characteristics
would have both theoretical and professional implications. A study more
entrenched in the uses and gratiﬁcations perspective would be
appropriate here.

Another variable that would play into this is whether the reader is
in the diversionary mode or the information-seeking mode. Much
research has been conducted regarding advertising effectiveness and the
particular mode a reader or viewer is in. This same theoretical concept

could be applied to reader satisfaction of editorial content. The basic

138

research question being, are diversionary articles (or what types of
diversionary articles) more satisfying when readers are in a browsing
mode versus an information-seeking mode?

It should be noted here that diversionary subject matter is relative.
What is considered hard-core information in one article (in a magazine or
on a Web site) might be diversionary in another magazine or Web site. It
is somewhat relative to the reader. However, another approach would be
seeking to identify what types of subject matter are appropriate for what
medium. What subject matters work best in each medium? This is
beyond simple medium characteristics of video, audio and print.

Of course, the Web can add levels of interactivity to information-oriented
articles, such as buyer’s guides, that cannot be offered on the printed
page. But in the area of diversion, is typical diversionary subject matter
“more enjoyable” in the printed magazine format than on the Web where
the reader must be at the computer?

For example, experimental design could be used wherein the same
diversionary or affective type article text and photos was presented in
printed, tactile magazine form to one group and presented to another
group in Web e-zine form. Other variables could be accounted for in a
factorial design with perhaps different levels of story length being
presented in the Web version. After reading the article subjects would be
administered an established instrument to measure reader satisfaction.
Again, the general direction is getting at the question of what subject
matter is best for each medium. With these questions answered
publishers and editors would better know what types of articles to

feature in print only, on the Web only and on both.

139

This also has to do with other issues such as story and sentence
length as well. Professional advice offered in books on writing for the Web
suggests that people want shorter stories and sentences, simpler
information. Does this apply across the board to all types of material ——
informative versus diversionary? Some research in this direction has
been conducted, but on newspaper and news reading. Magazines, again,
have not been the focus of much attention. Research emphasizing
diversionary subject matter and printed magazines would be useful

theoretically as well as to the magazine and Web industries.

140

APPENDIX A

Mail version of survey and associated materials

141

(MSU School of Journalism letterhead)

October 17, 2000

Dear Reader:

As a magazine subscriber, you have been selected to take part in the enclosed
survey as part of a doctoral research project at Michigan State University. It is
about how people spend their time with conventional printed magazines and the
World Wide Web. It consists of 51 questions and only takes about 15 minutes to
complete.

Your responses are very important. Please read and answer each question
carefully, and return the survey in the enclosed postage-paid envelope as soon
as possible. As a way of saying thanks for taking the time to return the survey, if
we receive your survey by November 10th you will be entered in a drawing to win
a $100 gift certiﬁcate from a popular store.

The identifying number on the questionnaire is used to track responses and for
follow-up mailings so a high number of surveys will be returned. All identifying
information will be destroyed at the conclusion of the survey. The conﬁdentiality
of the questionnaire will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

By completing and returning the enclosed questionnaire, you voluntarily agree to
participate in this study. Please do so with the enclosed postage-paid envelope
ASAP.

If you have questions, or would like a brief summary of the results, please
contact me at (801) 378-1694 or by e—mail at randlequ@msu.edu. Or you may
contact the chair of MSU’s committee supervising research involving human
subjects, David E. Wright, at (517) 355-2180.

Sincerely,

Quint Randle
Doctoral Candidate

142

WW and Magazine Use Survey
Section 1 - lntemet and Magazine Use

Before beginning the survey, please read the deﬁnitions below and keep them in mind
as you answer the questions.

Magazine Use: Subscribing to or reading conventional printed magazines for
consumer, special interest or business use. These may be monthly or weekly.

World Wide Web Use: Viewing and reading Web pages published by organizations or
individuals for consumer, special interest or business use. For the purposes of this
study, WWW use does not include the use of email, chat rooms and message boards
(directly interacting with other individuals or groups of individuals).

1) How many hours did you spend visiting Web sites in the last week? (Do not include
time spent emailing, in chat rooms or on discussion boards.)

[ ]0
[ ] Less Than 1 Hour
[ ] 1-2 Hours

[ ] 2—3 Hours

[ ]4-5 Hours

[ ] More than 5 Hours

2) What is your primary type of Internet connection?

[ ] 14.4K Modem (or slower)
[ ] 28.8K to 56K Modem

[ ] ISDN

[ ] T-l/T-3/Fractional T-l
[ ] Cable Modem/DSL

[ ] Don't Know

[ ] Other (Please specify):

 

3) From where do you access the World Wide Web most frequently?

[ ]Home [ ]Work [ ]School [ ]Other:

 

4) How long have you been accessing the World Wide Web at home, work or school?

[ ] Less Than a Year [ ] 1-3 Years [ ] 4—6 Years [ ] More than 6

143

5) With the total being 100% , how do you spend your time reading and viewing
WORLD WIDE WEB pages? (The total of the following 4 items should equal 100%)

General Interest/Entertainment 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Special Interest/Hobby 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Business/Work 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
School/Education 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

6) How many weekly or monthly magazines (printed) do you subscribe to?
[]0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 [160rm0re

7) Over the last month, how many magazines did you buy on a single copy basis? For
example, at a newsstand, convenience store or grocery checkout.

[]0[]1[]2[]3[]4[]5[]60rm0re

8) Since becoming a World Wide Web user, has the amount of time you spend reading
magazines...

[ ] Increased
[ ] Remained the Same
[ ] Decreased

9) With the total being 100%, how do you spend your time reading print
MAGAZINES?
(The total of the following 4 items should equal 100%)

General Interest/Entertainment 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Special Interest/Hobby 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Business/Work 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
School/Education 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

10) On average, how many hours of television do you watch a day?

[]0
[]LessThanl
[]1
[]2
[]3
[]4
[]50rmore

11) Did you read a local newspaper yesterday?
[ ] Yes [ ] No

144

Section 2 - Rating Magazine and Web Use

This next section asks you to rate "how helpful" printed magazines and WW sites are
on 35 statements, with 1 being LEAST helpful, and 5 being MOST helpful. Please
circle your response. Please remember the deﬁnitions you read at the beginning of the
survey.

12) They offer companionship. (1 = least helpful, 5 = most helpful)

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5

Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

13) They offer information to pass on to others. (1 = least helpful, 5 = most helpful)

Magazines 1 2 3
2 3

4 5
Web sites 1 4 5
14) They help me to understand what's going on.

Magazines 1

2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

15) offer immediate news.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

16) to improve the quality of my lifestyle.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
17) to look at photos.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

18) to play.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

19) They help me to gain status. (1 = least helpful, 5 = most helpful)
Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

145

20) to learn about famous people.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
21) to locate exactly what I'm looking for.

Magazines 1

2 3 5
Web sites 1 2 3 5

A48

22) They help me because they are economical.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

23) to be happy.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
24) to keep abreast of events.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

25) to give me information on job matters.

Magazines 1 2
2

3 4 5
Web sites 1 3 4 5
26) to combat boredom.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

27) to live out a fantasy.

Magazines 1 2 3
2 3

4
Web sites 1 4

1.11M

28) to contact authors and editors.

Magazines 1

2 3 4
Websites 1 2 3 4

ML)!

146

29) They help me by being readily accessible. (1 being least helpful, 5 being most
helpful)

Magazines 1

2 3 4
Websites 1 2 3 4

5
5

30) to teach me about common issues.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
31) to meet new people.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

32) They help me because they are convenient.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
33) to express my opinion.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

34) offer interesting stories to pass on to other people.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
35) to feel important.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

36) to follow up and get in-depth information.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
37) They help me pass time. (1 being least helpful, 5 being most helpful)

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

147

38) to locate past and future articles.

Magazines 1 2
2

3 4 5
Web sites 1 3 4 5

39) help me with my job.

Magazines 1

4 5
Web sites 1 4 5

NM
000.)

40) to ﬁnd products through advertisements.

Magazines 1 2
2

3 4 5
Web sites 1 3 4 5
41) to get information quickly.
Magazines 1

2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

42) to make buying decisions.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
43) to relax.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

44) to get information like weather, stocks and sports.

Magazines 1 2
2

3 4 5
Web sites 1 3 4 5

45) to look at interesting graphics and pages.
Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5
46) to feel good.

Magazines 1 2 3 4 5
Web sites 1 2 3 4 5

148

Section Three - Demographics

Now just a few demographic questions. Remember, this information will be kept
completely conﬁdential, and will not be used for any other purposes than this study.
47) Are you male or female?

[ ] Male [ ] Female

48) In what year were you born?

 

49) What is the highest level of school you completed?

[ ] 8th grade or less [ ] Some college or 2-year degree
[ ] Some high school, but did not graduate [ ] 4-year college graduate
[ ] High school graduate or GED [ ] Graduate Degree

50) Your annual household income falls in which of the following categories

[ ] Less than $15,000
[ ]$15,00l-$30,000
[ ]$30,00l-$45,000
[ ]$45,001-$60,000
[ ]$60,00l-$75,000

[ ]$75,001-$90,000

[ ] More than $90,001

51) Do you have any ﬁnal comments on magazine and Web use?

Thank you for completing the survey.
If you would like to receive a brief summary of the results of this study when it is

completed, or have any other questions or comments study, please contact me at 801-
378-1694 or via email at randlequ@msu.edu. Thanks again for your help.

Quint Randle
Doctoral Candidate

149

Reminder Postcard

 

 

IMPORTANT NOTICE

You were invited to participate in a study
about two weeks ago, but we have not
received your completed survey.

Your responses are very important to us. Please
complete and return

the survey ASAP. Thank you.

Quint Randle
Doctoral candidaie — Michigan State University
801-378-1694 quini_iandieebyu.ecu a

 

150

(MSU School of Journalism letterhead)

November 9, 2000

Dear Reader:

A few weeks ago, you were invited to participate in an important study about
magazines and the lntemet.

But we have not received your completed survey.

Because your responses are so important, we have sent you another copy of the
survey, which begins on the back side of this page.

Please return it in the postage-paid envelope as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Quint Randle
Doctoral Candidate

151

APPENDIX B

Web version of survey and associated materials

152

Introductory email messagg

Dear Gig Reader:

You have been selected to participate in an important study
sponsored by Michigan State University regarding Web use and
printed magazines.

This study is about your general Web and conventional
magazine use, NOT specifically about Gig Magazine or our Web
site. So think broadly as you answer the questions.

We're counting on your participation. (As an added incentive
one respondent will receive a $100 prize.)

Click on the link below or paste the URL into your browser
to take the survey now.

http://ucs.byu.edu/artcom/comm/qbr3/survey1.html

 

Again, your participation and responses are very important.
Thanks,

Bill Evans
Editor

PS - If by chance you already received this survey via snail
mail, please return that version instead of taking this one.

153

Second and third email reminders

 

Readers:

About a week ago I invited you to participate in an Internet
survey. If you have not completed this survey it would be
great if you could do so as soon as possible. Your
individual responses are VERY IMPORTANT.

The survey only take about 10 minutes to complete and a
prize of $100 is being awarded.

Point your browser to:

http://ucs.byu.edu/artcom/comm/qer/surveyl.html

 

If you have already completed the survey, please disregard
this notice. Thanks again for your help.

Bill Evans
Editor

***

Readers:

Thanks to all of you who have completed the Internet use
survey.

If by chance you have not completed this survey it would be
great if you could do so as soon as possible. Your
individual responses are VERY IMPORTANT.

The survey only take about 10 minutes to complete and a
prize of $100 is being awarded.

Point your browser to:

http://ucs.byu.edu/artcom/comm/qer/survey1.html

 

Thanks again for your help.

Bill Evans
Editor

154

Screen shot of partial intro page

  

 

  
  

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survey ”pm of: doctoral research projectuMichignSme Udversity. his
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The conﬁdentiality ofyou' responses will be protected to the madman extent
allowable by law.

  

155

Screen shot of deﬁnitions page

 

 

Section 1 - internet and Magazine Use

E Before beginning. please read the definitions below and keep them
_ in mind as you answer the questions.

Magazine Uee: Subscribing to or reading conventional printed magaz'nes
. for consumer, special interest or business use. These may be monthly or
weekly,

World Wide Web Use: Viewing and reading Web pages published by
organizations or individuals for consumer. special interest or business use.
For the purposes of this study. VWVW use does not include the use of email.
chat rooms and message boards (directly interacting with other individuals or
groups of individuals).

Cllc h to n silo l

 

156

Screen shot of ﬁrst page of survey Questions

 

WWW and Magazine Use Survey

 

Section 1 - Internet and Magazine Use

1) How many hours did you spend visiting Web sites in the lest week? (Do not include time
spent emailing, In chat rooms or on dlsousslon boards.)

1" O

1” Less Than 1 Hour
1" 1-2 Hours

f‘ 2-3 Hours

f‘ 4-5 Hours

1" More than 5 Hours

2) What is your primary type of Internet connection?

1" 14.4K Modem (or slower)
i" 28.8K to 56K Modem
1" ISDN/DSL

 

157

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