Structurally embedded news consumption on mobile news applications

Abstract This study uses a longitudinal dataset extracted from a mobile news application and adopts a multilevel design to examine the evolution of diversity of individuals’ news consumption and to identify the factors that underlie such evolution. A decreasing trend in news consumption diversity is observed among users. The news consumption diversity of individuals is positively related to global information diversity. Furthermore, the news consumption diversity of males exhibits a stronger tendency to be influenced by global information diversity than that of females. The decreasing trend in news consumption diversity is less remarkable among males than among females. This study complements traditional motivation-driven perspectives of news consumption by mining the structural antecedents of news consumption diversity and further emphasizes the social implications of mobile news technology. Lastly, practical implications and limitations are discussed.