Media Deregulation and the Online News Market

Abstract

The preservation of a diverse news market has been one of the longstanding motivations behind media ownership limitations. Without the checks and balances provided by competition, owner interests may unduly influence the news. The vibrant online news community, which includes thousands of news sites representing a wide range of political viewpoints, has recently been cited as one of the reasons that government regulation of the traditional news market is becoming less important. With so many viewpoints online, why would we worry about news diversity?

This argument raises two important sets of empirical questions. First, what is the relationship between people’s use of online and traditional news media? Are new sources replacing traditional media institutions, making the older organizations less relevant, or is something else going on? To address this question I examine news media usage patterns using data collected in a national random-digit-dial telephone survey (n=1,510). This analysis will show that the major news organizations continue to define the news landscape for most Americans, online and off. Though a significant minority uses alternative news sources online, these sources compliment, rather than replace, the mainstream media.

Second, what will happen if reduced competition among major news outlets leads them to be increasingly aligned with the interests of a few organizations, producing a more partisan news market? To answer this question, I will focus on understanding people’s preferences regarding political information. Research suggests that when seeking information in general, people desire viewpoint reinforcement but are not averse to challenging information. If this holds for news use, then people will expose themselves to partisan sources that align with their own political views, but they will not shy away from sources that offer a more balanced set of views. To assess people’s preferences, I use data collected in the survey described above to examine how people are using the control afforded by online news to shape their exposure to political information. I supplement this analysis with data from a web-administered experiment conducted with a national sample of partisan news service readers (n=994). The experiment looks specifically at the types of information people examine when presented with a diverse pool of political news. The results confirm that in their search for political news people do seek viewpoint reinforcement, but comparatively few act to limit their exposure to other perspectives. This implies that a news market that prominently includes balanced news sources will help to encourage awareness of a full spectrum of political viewpoints, while a more partisan news market will lead to a significant drop in that individuals’ exposure to political viewpoints other than their own, even if a wide range of viewpoints are available.

Taken together, these results suggest that ownership regulation continues to play an important role. The finding regarding news preferences underscores the importance of a news market that contains balanced news outlets, while the data on contemporary uses of the Internet suggest that we cannot yet look to online news to ensure that such a market exists.