New essay in "New Media & Society" by Dr Frank Mangold  [19.10.21]

[Translate to English:] Dr. Frank Mangold

Together with his co-authors Dr. Sebastian Stier and Dr. Johannes Breuer (both GESIS) and Prof. Dr. Michael Scharkow (Uni Mainz), Dr. Frank Mangold has published another high-ranking international peer-reviewed paper entitled "The overstated generational gap in online news use? A consolidated infrastructural perspective". The paper addresses the question of the extent to which structural determinants counteract commonly assumed generational gaps in online news use. To address this question, the authors address important limitations of previous survey and tracking studies and approach generational gaps from a repertoire perspective.

Abstract: Recent research by Taneja et al. suggested that digital infrastructures diminish the generational gap in news use by counteracting preference structures. We expand on this seminal work by arguing that an infrastructural perspective requires overcoming limitations of highly aggregated web tracking data used in prior research. We analyze the individual browsing histories of two representative samples of German Internet users collected in 2012 (N = 2970) and 2018 (N = 2045) and find robust evidence for a smaller generational gap in online news use than commonly assumed. While short news website visits mostly demonstrated infrastructural factors, longer news use episodes were shaped more by preferences. The infrastructural role of social media corresponded with reduced news avoidance and more varied news repertoires. Overall, the results suggest that research needs to reconsider commonly held premises regarding the uses of digital media in modern high-choice settings.

The full article can be downloaded (open access) at the following address: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444821989972.

The article has been published in the journal "New Media & Society" (Impact Factor: 4.577) by Sage Verlag. New Media & Society is one of the most renowned and highest ranked journals, both in the field of media and communication studies (Scopus: 2nd place out of 387; Google: 1st place) and in the wider field of all social science journals (Scopus: 10th place out of 1243; Google: 7th place).

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