An Experiential View of What Short Digital News Practices Mean from An Audience Perspective

This paper explores short digital news practices from an audience perspective. Following declining revenues and an increased focus on audiences, the metric of time spent has become a key parameter for measuring people’s attention and engagement with news. With people spending less time, concerns have accordingly been raised about the future of journalism and the quality of people’s informedness. By focusing on how audiences experience and navigate news online, this paper problematizes longstanding assumptions about the relationship between time spent and interest in news. Drawing on empirical data from two interview rounds with Norwegian news users, combined with video-ethnography, media diaries, and data donations, the study contributes to existing research on time spent (and lost) on news by untangling the temporal experiences and practices of news audiences. Findings show short and dispersed consumption patterns to be (1) parts of overall cross-media news practices; (2) expressions of skilled navigation; (3) expressions of reassurance and control; and (4) automated and unintended practices.