Evaluating the factors that influence news preferences on digital platforms

Abstract

The ‘always connected’ nature of digital media means that reaching and connecting with consumers is more difficult than ever. Evaluating the factors that South African consumers use for news preferences is important, as these will provide new media organisations with insights on how consumers navigate, manage, and process the infinite news content that is aggressively vying for their attention on digital platforms. The Uses and gratifications (U&G) theory is a powerful media-use framework to decipher consumer motivation for media preference. Recent adaptations of U&G theory describe three critical dimensions namely, content, social and process. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine whether the measures of the three constructs are consistent in the South African news mediated context. The study found content and process factors as the most significant when making news preferences. Whilst social gratifications factors as least influential to consumers.