The news industry has come under tremendous pressure in the last decade. None more so than the newspaper industry, which has seen all aspects of its operation: readership, revenue, staff, distribution and reputation decline dramatically. This study uses content analysis to examine the reading habits of news consumers from nine newspaper-based websites from the Advance Publishing chain. The samples were the stories in the “most popular this hour” list, examined every 5 days from August to September, 2014. These stories were separated into categories such as news, sports, business, etc., and further coded based on their proximity to the news organization. The goal is to understand what stories people are reading and discover any trend in their behaviors. This study is guided by niche theory, and the results show the theories at work as readers of these sites overwhelmingly gravitated towards two niche categories: local news and sports, and disregard the other offerings on the websites.
","abstract_html":"<p>The news industry has come under tremendous pressure in the last decade. None more so than the newspaper industry, which has seen all aspects of its operation: readership, revenue, staff, distribution and reputation decline dramatically. This study uses content analysis to examine the reading habits of news consumers from nine newspaper-based websites from the Advance Publishing chain. The samples were the stories in the “most popular this hour” list, examined every 5 days from August to September, 2014. These stories were separated into categories such as news, sports, business, etc., and further coded based on their proximity to the news organization. The goal is to understand what stories people are reading and discover any trend in their behaviors. This study is guided by niche theory, and the results show the theories at work as readers of these sites overwhelmingly gravitated towards two niche categories: local news and sports, and disregard the other offerings on the websites.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Chen, Peter Shiang"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science (MS)","degree_level":"Masters Thesis","degree_discipline":"Mass Communication and Journalism","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Fei Xue","Mary Lou Sheffer","Chris Campbell"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-05-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2015-05-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:44:27Z","subjects":["journalism","news websites","content analysis","online news","hyperlocal","most popular stories","Journalism Studies"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/90","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Fei Xue","Mary Lou Sheffer","Chris Campbell"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Chen, Peter Shiang"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2015-03-17T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Mass Communication and Journalism"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Masters Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science (MS)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["journalism","news websites","content analysis","online news","hyperlocal","most popular stories","Journalism Studies"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/90"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["The news industry has come under tremendous pressure in the last decade. None more so than the newspaper industry, which has seen all aspects of its operation: readership, revenue, staff, distribution and reputation decline dramatically. This study uses content analysis to examine the reading habits of news consumers from nine newspaper-based websites from the Advance Publishing chain. The samples were the stories in the “most popular this hour” list, examined every 5 days from August to September, 2014. These stories were separated into categories such as news, sports, business, etc., and further coded based on their proximity to the news organization. The goal is to understand what stories people are reading and discover any trend in their behaviors. This study is guided by niche theory, and the results show the theories at work as readers of these sites overwhelmingly gravitated towards two niche categories: local news and sports, and disregard the other offerings on the websites.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Are People Reading Local News? A Content Analysis of Popular News Stories on Nine Newspaper Websites"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Fei Xue","Mary Lou Sheffer","Chris Campbell"],"dc:creator":["Chen, Peter Shiang"],"dc:date.available":["2015-03-17T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["The news industry has come under tremendous pressure in the last decade. None more so than the newspaper industry, which has seen all aspects of its operation: readership, revenue, staff, distribution and reputation decline dramatically. This study uses content analysis to examine the reading habits of news consumers from nine newspaper-based websites from the Advance Publishing chain. The samples were the stories in the “most popular this hour” list, examined every 5 days from August to September, 2014. These stories were separated into categories such as news, sports, business, etc., and further coded based on their proximity to the news organization. The goal is to understand what stories people are reading and discover any trend in their behaviors. This study is guided by niche theory, and the results show the theories at work as readers of these sites overwhelmingly gravitated towards two niche categories: local news and sports, and disregard the other offerings on the websites.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/90"],"dc:subject":["journalism","news websites","content analysis","online news","hyperlocal","most popular stories","Journalism Studies"],"dc:title":["Are People Reading Local News? A Content Analysis of Popular News Stories on Nine Newspaper Websites"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Mass Communication and Journalism"],"thesis:degree_level":["Masters Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science (MS)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:44:27Z"}