Internet News: Is It a Replacement for Traditional Media Outlets?

Abstract

The Internet has changed the political world, but its effect on media usage patterns is not well understood. In particular, previous research suggests no clear answer to the question of whether the Internet is a substitute for or a complement to traditional media outlets. We contribute to this literature by applying theories from ecology—namely, the theory of the niche—to examine competition between new and older media. Our study is the first to test hypotheses derived from this theory on a large, national sample. The analysis indicates that people are replacing traditional outlets, especially newspapers, with the Internet. At the same time, however, replacement is not a widespread phenomenon as yet. We find important replacement differences across newspapers and radio on the one hand and television on the other. We also report some of the first evidence regarding the attitudinal consequences of replacement behavior.