Content area
Full text
Pub Res Q (2011) 27:126134
DOI 10.1007/s12109-011-9205-8
Barry A. Hollander Dean M. Krugman
Tom Reichert J. Adam Avant
Published online: 24 February 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract This study examines the effects of a major metropolitan newspapers withdrawal from a city and whether an e-reader pre-loaded with a digital subscription to the newspaper would act as a replacement. In-depth interviews with 20 former readers of the newspaper found the device, the Kindle DX, to be generally liked for its readability but a poor substitute for the published version of the newspaper.
Keywords Circulation Demographics E-readers Kindle Mobile technology
Newspapers Smart phones Subscribers
The remarkable growth of various digital technologies has disrupted a broad range of traditional print publishing industries, including books, magazines, and newspapers. Not only did readership of U.S. newspapers decline overall, but many major metropolitan newspapers added to their print circulation woes by withdrawing from geographic areas deemed too expensive to reach. This trimming of the fringe left many readers without access to the print edition of their states major source of news coverage. Former readers had a number of options: to learn to live without the newspaper, to read its web site, or to turn to the growing number of mobile media such as e-readers, smartphones, and tablets for their news and information. Here we examine just such a real-world scenario after a major metropolitan newspaper withdrew from a nearby city. We provided e-readers to former readers of the newspaper to explore whether they missed the traditional print publication, whether the web site was viewed as an alternative, and whether the e-reader version of the newspaper served as a viable substitute for print or the web.
B. A. Hollander (&) D. M. Krugman T. Reichert J. Adam Avant
College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA e-mail: [email protected]
The E-Reader as Replacement for the Print Newspaper
123
Pub Res Q (2011) 27:126134 127
Declining Print Readership
It is difcult to overstate the decline in printed newspaper circulation observed over the last decade. Daily newspapers, for example, shed 9% of weekly print publication sales from April 2009 to April 2010 alone [1]. The decline in readership of the print product over the past several years is...