A Marketplace Theory of Media Use

This study articulates a theory of media use that, with the proliferation and diversification of the mass media, conceptualizes news coverage as a commodity or product. From marketing to mass communication, we extend a conceptual framework of product purchase, articulating 4 determinants of attitude toward newspaper (AN), which, in turn, influences newspaper readership. Determinants of AN are news credibility, attitude toward diversity aspects of journalism, attitude toward financial aspects of journalism, and individual differences. The study, using a well-fitting structural equation model, demonstrates the role that each of these measures plays in predicting media use and, furthermore, validates the applicability of the marketplace theory of media use. The model was tested with data from a telephone survey of 803 adults in a large California urban center.