Cohen Yuval 2015

Places for news:
A situated study of context and research
methods in news consumption
Yuval Roy Cohen
Project report submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science (Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics) in the
Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, 2015.
NOTE BY THE UNIVERSITY
This project report is submitted as an examination paper. No responsibility can
be held by London University for the accuracy or completeness of the material
therein.
Acknowledgements
First, I want to thank my supervisors: Paul Marshall, who thoughtfully
guided me through a project that seemed at first an insurmountable
challenge; Marios Constantinides, who provided me with key insight and
advice at critical junctures in the project; Joanne Moore and Jiri Jerabek
at BBC R&D who shared their rich knowledge and experience in the field
throughout the project, and helped me establish the conceptual foundation
for this research endeavour.
Second, I wish to express a deep gratitude to my family: to my parents and
grandparents, without whose support I would not have been able to pursue
this degree, and to my siblings, who encouraged me to cross oceans in
order to pursue my passions and interests. A special thanks to my mother,
as well as my Oma and Grandpa for agreeing to proofread my work.
Finally, I want to thank Dorota for her patience, calm, and unwavering
encouragement throughout my work on this project.
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Abstract
News consumption is being fundamentally changed by the increased use of
mobile devices and social media platforms. ‘Contextually-aware’ news
applications use location and movement data to customise content.
However, they do not customise the interface through which news is
delivered, and do not take social and individual contextual factors into
account.
This exploratory study aims to identify contextual factors that affect news
consumption and to determine their effect on user behaviour and
experience with technology. The formative phase of the study included a
three week autoethnography study and background interviews. In the
main phase, 17 participants reported their daily news consumption
activities through a snippet-based diary and experience sampling study,
which was followed by semi-structured exit interviews. Additionally, a
commercially available task management and note-taking software
application was appropriated for data collection. This combination of
methodology and apparatus was designed to maintain a low participant
in-situ
burden, especially in regard to data entry, and was evaluated as
part of the study.
Findings indicated a range of contextual factors that are not accounted for
in current ‘contextually-aware’ news delivery technologies, and could be
developed to better adapt such technologies in the future. These factors
were segmented to four areas: triggers, positive/conducive factors,
negative/distracting factors, barriers to use. Additionally, the methodology
and apparatus were evaluated and found to have a generally low burden on
participants, showing promise for future implementations of methods.
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Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction 7
1.1. Aims 9
Goals and Research Questions 9
Potential Contributions 10
Chapter 2. Literature Review 11
2.1. Situated Studies 11
Situated Action Theory 11
Purpose of Situated Research 11
2.2. Context in HCI 13
Spaces and Places 15
2.3. News Consumption and Adaptive News Interfaces 16
2.4. Mobility 17
Chapter 3. Methodology and Approaches 19
3.1. Autoethnography 19
3.2. Situated Study Methods 20
Diary Studies 20
The ‘Snippet’ Technique 22
Experience Sampling Method (ESM) 23
3.3. Semi-Structured Interviews 24
3.4. Custom-Built Tools & Appropriation 24
3.5. Triangulation 25
3.6. Data Analysis Approach 26
Grounded Theory 26
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Thematic Analysis 26
Chapter 4. Methods 27
4.1. Autoethnography 27
4.2. Background Interviews 28
4.3. Pilot Study 28
4.4. Main Study 29
Participants 29
Apparatus 31
Procedure 34
Ethical Considerations 37
4.5. Data Analysis 37
Chapter 5. Findings 41
5.1. Methodology Evaluation 41
5.1.1. Participation Rates and In-Situ Burden 41
5.1.2. In-Situ Methods 45
5.1.3. Wunderlist Interface and Functionality 47
5.2. Triggers for News Consumption 52
5.2.1. Internal triggers 52
5.2.2. External triggers 55
5.3. Contextual Factors – Positive/Conducive 61
5.4. Contextual Factors – Negative/Distracting 68
5.5. Barriers to Use 75
Chapter 6. Discussion 79
6.1. News consumption is opportunistic 81
Situation matters more than physical location – users create 81

appropriated spaces and technology to consume news
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Consumption characteristics are shaped by momentary 82
needs
Consumption ‘niches’ 83
6.2. Methodologies and apparatus influence the effectiveness of 84

in-situ data collection
Custom-built applications vs. ‘off the shelf’ appropriation 84
Design of in-situ methods is key to managing participation 85

burden
6.3. Directions for future research 86
6.4. Limitations 87
Chapter 7. Conclusion 89
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Chapter 1. Introduction
News consumption is changing rapidly thanks to digital methods of
consumption, reinforced by almost ubiquitous handheld mobile devices.
Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and even direct
messaging platforms such as Whatsapp and Snapchat are becoming

de
facto
distribution channels for news stories. This effectively wrests control
away from publishers in regard to the ways in which news is presented to
and ultimately consumed by users

[62]
.
Regularly conducted market research charts user habits and proposes
future directions for news content

[62,65,66]
. However, less focus has
been placed on gaining an understanding of what drives user habits and
how users’ physical, social and personal environments affect their news
consumption habits – in other words, their context of use.
Mobile devices almost ubiquitously collect information that encapsulates
elements of context: location, connectivity and certain spatial
characteristics such as light and device movement. These elements are
quantifiable to a very high level of granularity, and are utilised to make
news content ‘contextually-aware’ according to topics and locations
[10,16,81]
. However, these contextual elements do not account for the
broader social, cultural and individual aspects that might shape a user’s
context of use
[34]
.
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To study a particular context, user actions and habits must be examined
within the situation that they occur. User actions can be dynamic and
unpredictable, and are often an interplay with events that happen while an
interaction with technology is taking place

[80]
. Context can be seen as a
combination of the physical attributes of an individual’s environment, and
the individual and social practices that develop within that environment
[32]
. The way in which individuals interpret their environment can often
create a context independent of the space in which it is taking place

[46]
.
A situated approach to the exploration of user context becomes all the
more pertinent with the increased relevance of mobility to the everyday
lives of individuals
[83]
, and specifically, the patterns of news
consumption in mobile contexts

[31]
. The current study builds on
approaches in social science that examine how individuals attach meaning
to urban spaces
[37]
, and more specifically, the sense of isolation and
solitude they create within those spaces

[5,45]
.
In recent years, HCI researchers have ventured into a variety of

in-situ
methods that were previously limited to psychology and social science, in
order to better understand user behaviour in general and context of use in
particular. Some methods, such as ethnography, require a researcher to be
present among participants in order to collect data

[82]
, while other
methods such as diary studies and experience sampling rely on
self-reporting by participants. Diaries have been used in studies of
information needs, with computerised

[4,18,21,55]
and non-computerised
[22,28,64]
apparatus. Experience sampling method (ESM) has been used
in-situ
to obtain information that is of more real-time quality
[18,20,24]
,
as well as interviews aided by memory cues based on participant responses
-8-
[14,17,59,61]
. Additionally, the HCI community has been making
increasing use of autoethnography as a method that enables researchers to
empathise with and gain better understanding of user needs and contexts
of use
[38,67]
.
The significant body of work into both news consumption and situated
studies has contributed substantially to both of these respective fields.
Despite this, previous research has not combined the two in order to better
understand the contextual factors affecting behaviour and use patterns of
news consumers.
in-situ
Similarly, the technological apparatus used to conduct studies has
not seen a great deal of development. Previous research has combined
custom web platforms with SMS for diary and experience sampling studies
[20,78]
, but these do not provide an integrated software environment that
facilitates communication and data input from participants, especially
where connectivity is scarce.
1.1. Aims
Goals and Research Questions
The current study aims to address two research questions. First, it aims to
identify contextual factors relevant to news consumption, especially those
of a more qualitative and experiential nature, which have been of less focus
in previous research. Second, the study aims to explore the effect of any
identified contextual factors on user behaviour pertaining to news
consumption, and the influence it has on the news consumption
experience as a whole.
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A further aim of this research is to examine the use of new apparatus for
in-situ
data collection. A commercially available app was appropriated for
use in the study, and its effectiveness for data collection was evaluated.
Wunderlist1 , a task management and note-taking platform, was chosen as
the apparatus for participant self-reporting, primarily for its orientation
towards task completion, notification management and offline capabilities.
Potential Contributions
Results of the current study may be of potential use to members of the HCI
community who wish to further explore the effects of context on
technology use in general, and news or media applications in particular.
This research hopes to add social, cultural and individual elements to the
interpretation of context, and to enable the development of user interfaces
that will adapt to that context.
Furthermore, this research hopes to make a methodological contribution
to the body of knowledge regarding situated research and self-reported
studies. It also aims to expand the range of technological apparatus used to
in-situ
conduct such studies, making research easier, more efficient and
thereby more common in the future.
1
https://www.wunderlist.com/
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Chapter 2. Literature Review
This chapter provides a brief review of two important backdrops to the
current study. First, it explores the conceptual frameworks of situated
action and context in HCI

[80] [32,34,46]
. Second, it reviews related work
in the fields of news consumption, adaptive reading experiences and
mobility from both a social science

[5,77,83]
as well as an HCI perspective
[31,36,71]
.
2.1. Situated Studies
Situated Action Theory
Situated Action Theory

[80]
argues that plans or schemas of actions that
people may have for a given situation might differ from their actual
behaviour and actions. Changing circumstances and complexities within
these situations lead to unpredictable and ad hoc interactions between
people and elements in a specific situation. Abstracting expected user
actions away from a situation, as is often done in technology design, does
not account for what Abowd et al.

[2]
describes as “the improvisational
aspects of human behavior”, as opposed to a priori plans. It is this
importance of the situation itself that brought Suchman

[80]
to introduce
the term ‘situated’, later defined by Chen & Rada

[19]
as “the
interrelationship between an action and its context of performance”.
Purpose of Situated Research
The unpredictability and complexity described by Suchman

[80]
brought
other researchers in-situ

to support
[23,73] studies for the purpose of
understanding user interactions and contexts of use, with some even
labeling them as crucial for ubiquitous computing applications

[9]
. The use
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of situated approaches has also expanded into social environments that are
relatively less-structured, such as home and mobility situations

[8,45,76]
.
Situated studies are generally seen as serving one of two purposes:
studying the behaviour of individuals, or evaluating new technologies,
concepts or prototypes in their context of use

[9]
. The current study will
focus on the former.
There is a debate as to what results and insights field studies should
provide. Dourish
[35]
argues, in relation to ethnography, that focusing as
an end result on what many HCI studies term ‘Implications for Design’, is
counterproductive to the purpose of actually gaining an understanding of
users and the context in which they operate. He argues that ‘discount
ethnography’ techniques and other field study methods are not necessarily
carried out in a methodically sound manner, and are conducted for the
purpose of reaching a narrow set of insights about a predefined set of
topics. Dourish urges the HCI community to employ ethnography as a
more comprehensive and exploratory method, geared at providing a wider
cultural understanding. This view is somewhat similar to other
commentary made about design-oriented ethnography

[15,57]
. While the
current study does make use of reflective, self-reporting methods that
Dourish would perhaps classify as forms of ‘discount’ methods, it does take
a more exploratory and discovery-based approach, and as Dourish urges –
is “intended to provide inspiration rather than the basis for analysis”

[35]
.
Within the field of situated studies, it is important to note the distinction
in-the-wild
between observational, studies that involve the presence of a
in-situ
researcher, and self-reported studies that rely on
participant-generated feedback in order to paint a picture of a given
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experience, context and environment. Observational studies offer the
unmatched quality of unmediated recording of user activities in-context,
and can uncover details that would otherwise not have been accurately
articulated by participants
[72]
. However, they present issues of scalability
[17]
– issues that are pertinent to the current study, and are also
susceptible to an ‘observer effect’, whereby participants alter their
behaviour due to the awareness that they are being observed

[60]
.
Conversely, self-reported methods provide a naturalistic and unobtrusive
in-situ
way to obtain insights
[20]
. Indeed, many exploratory studies have
employed self-reporting by participants

[14,20,55,78]
, and the current
study follows their path.
2.2. Context in HCI
Dourish
[34]
describes context in HCI as “human action and the
relationship between that action and computational systems to support it”.
He mentions two main uses for context in HCI: encoding of contextual
information for later use as retrieval cues, and more commonly, the
dynamic use of context for creation of systems that adapt to patterns of
use, which is also the relevant approach to the current study. Dourish
describes two divergent theories in social sciences that are relevant for the
positivist
understanding context in relation to technology and HCI: and
phenomenological
.
positivist
In the approach, mathematics and statistics play a prime role,
and an objective description of context is the ideal. This approach also
plays a central role in the definition put forward by Abowd et al.

[1]
and
Dey
[30]
, who presents a description of context that relies in large part on
earlier work by Schilit & Theimer and Pascoe

[75] [70]
. It emphasises the
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role of information as a descriptor of states – of “people, groups or
physical objects”, and is geared largely towards the creation of
context-aware computing applications. Dourish

[34]
argues that these
applications are representational in nature, and therefore necessarily
embody the positivist approach.
phenomenological
The approach to the definition of context, as described
by Dourish, contrasts to the positivist approach in that it is a subjective
exercise on an individual and social level, rather than an objective one.
This approach sees context as being an interplay between an individual
and his or her environment, an interplay continuously influenced by
interpretation, sense-making processes, and social settings. This view
phenomenology
relates to the definition of by Winograd & Flores
[87]
in
relation to the role of cognition in computing, as well as Suchman’s view of
situated action
[80]
. Indeed, Dourish notes them as theoretical
phenomenological
underpinnings of his view of context, as well as for
Embodied Interaction
[32]
– a conceptual framework that grounds the
understanding of an experience in continuous engagement with the world
and events that occur within a situation. Dourish

[33]
sees
phenomenological
elements as important pillars in the definition of
context, and argues that frameworks for articulation of contextually-aware
features should account for them. The current study largely adopts the
phenomenological
view of context, with the hope of gaining a better
understanding of experiential and currently less quantified contextual
factors, which are less represented aspects of an individual’s news-reading
experience.
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Spaces and Places
phenomenological
Even within the approach to context, there is a question
as to the role of physical location in defining context, and the relation
between a physical space and the interactions that occur within it.
Harrison and Dourish

[46]
draw a distinction between two constructs in
which user actions can take place. They describe the physical
three-dimensional structures in which people perform a certain action as a
‘space’, as opposed to a construct shaped by social and behavioural
aspects, which is a ‘place’. While not cited as a basis for the work of
Harrison and Dourish, sociologist Thomas Gieryn perhaps clarifies the
distinction between the two best:
“place is not space – which is more properly conceived as abstract
geometries (distance, direction, size, shape, volume) detached from
material form and cultural interpretation. Space is what place
becomes when the unique gathering of things, meanings, and
values are sucked out”

[42]

[46]
explain that in the context of HCI, the social,
cultural and behavioral elements essentially appropriate spaces and
technologies in a process that creates places with different meanings and
purposes for different users.
Mancini, Thomas, Rogers, & Price

[59]
used the aforementioned definition
of ‘places’ as one of the conceptual underpinnings when exploring how
context relates to privacy aspects of social networking activities in mobile
situations. They found that, for the purposes of privacy, context was
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“regulated by individual perceptions, exclusively shared knowledge,
unspoken codes of conduct, and different types of interconnection between
the physical and virtual world”, which supports previous theory by

[46]
.
2.3. News Consumption and Adaptive News Interfaces
While the current study is itself designed to explore the context around
news reading, usage data and related work can begin to paint a picture of
that context. Data from Reuters

[62]
shows that desktop computers are
still dominant but show a continuing trend of decline. Smartphone use
trails desktop use, but is rapidly growing, and is seen as the future focus
for the news industry, especially with younger demographics

[65]
–a
transformative change from times when mobile devices were labeled as
“supplementary” to news-reading
[84]
. The report describes ‘pathways’
and ‘gateways’ to news consumption – how stories are discovered, and
whether a process of serendipitous discovery occurs as a result. The
Reuters report mentions ‘gateways’ such as search, social networks, and
news-reading apps; It distinguishes between the different roles that
Facebook and Twitter play in news consumption – initiated consumption
vs. casual or unintentional consumption, and a landscape in which
‘platforms’ such as social networks or messaging apps possess primary
control over presentation of content. While these elements are inherently
important to the context in which a user consumes news, they are merely
the manifestation of internal and external influences that drive a user to
consume news. This study aims to focus on those influences rather than on
specific content.
- 16 -
Previous work relating to contextually-aware news consumption
technology has focused on appropriation of features and sensing
technology within existing technological platforms. One of the uses for
such appropriated data is the development of adaptive interfaces –
systems that ‘learn’ user habits and use patterns, and adapt a user
interface to better match those patterns . Constantinides et al.

[52] [25]
created ‘Habito News’, an Android news app that presented participants
with live news items while simultaneously logging frequency, time spent
and location of reading, as well as speed and article completion rate using
scroll-tracking. The goal of this research was to profile and classify reading
habits into prototypical patterns of use, and to use those classifications to
develop adaptive, context-dependent news-reading interfaces that match
them. Carreira
[16]
also focused on profiling patterns of use, though this
was done for customisation of content rather than interface. Other notable
work in this area

[10,81]
has focused on customisation of content itself, but
not on adaptation of the interface through which it is presented.
2.4. Mobility
The shift towards news consumption on mobile devices is not an isolated
phenomenon within news consumption or even HCI, and can possibly be
categorised as part of a larger trend described by social scientists as a
‘mobility turn’
[83]
. This school of thought in social sciences recognises the
increasing role of mobility and movement of people in human behaviour,
and the transformation in the analyses of those behaviours required as a
result. Urry
[83]
makes a claim for the study of mobility as a social science
in its own right, through which human behaviour is examined.
- 17 -
Building on Urry’s definition of a mobilised social paradigm, Dourish et al.
and Dourish & Bell

[36] [37]
recognised that role of mobility in everyday
life goes beyond the mere transportation of people, by remarking “mobility
is not simply about getting from point A to B; it is a form of social
practice”. Dourish & Bell focus on mobility in the context of urbanism, and
treat it as a spatial construct in which individuals render a space
meaningful by acting in a certain way. Some approaches in social science
describe a set of codes that governs interactions or non-interactions
between individuals in public spaces

[44]
. Other approaches, more
relevant to the current study, have focused on the isolation of individuals
from their environment in such spaces, creating “solitude and similitude”
[5,45]
. Earlier work by sociologist Georg Simmel described this behaviour
as such:
“The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one
actually finds oneself physically alone, as when one is a stranger,
without relations, among many physically close persons, at a
‘party’ on a train, or in the traffic of a large city”

[77]
An additional area of mobility research is studies of mobile work. While
news-reading can generally be considered a non-work task, studies of
mobile work have the potential for generalisable insights. Perry et al.
[71]
note the existence of ‘dead times’ – periods of time which workers spend
riding various forms of transportation or waiting for them to arrive. This is
an issue that has been noted as pertinent to news-reading on mobile
devices
[31]
. Other studies have focused on issues such as battery life,
connectivity and device limitations

[86]
– all issues with relevance to
everyday mobile information needs

[20]
.
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Chapter 3. Methodology and Approaches
This chapter provides an overview of the methodologies, theoretical
approaches and reasoning used for the study and the analysis of its results.
It begins with an overview of autoethnography

[27,39]
, which was used for
the formative part of the study. It then continues to the techniques used
during the main study – diary studies , the ‘snippet’ technique

[17] [12]
and
experience sampling . Finally, triangulation

[26,47] [58]
is discussed as an
approach for the use of multiple methods in the study, and the approaches
to data analysis are explained – grounded theory

[43,79]
and thematic
analysis
[13]
.
3.1. Autoethnography
Autoethnography is the use of ethnographic research methods for
self-study by a researcher, with the purpose of gaining an understanding
for a particular experience or context. This is done through examination
and reflection on a researcher’s own interpretation of the world

[39]
, and
aims to represent voices and subtleties that might have not been
discovered otherwise
[27]
.
Autoethnography is seen as a formation of an empathic relationship
between a researcher and participants. McCarthy & Wright

[88]
encourage
this practice in HCI as a whole, noting the importance of ‘knowing the
user’ and the centrality of empathy in HCI practice. O’Kane et al.

[67]
explored the relation between empathy and autoethnography during a
three-month study of a wrist blood pressure device, citing
- 19 -
autoethnography as a method that allows researchers to empathise with
user experiences and form the basis for further research. While
autoethnography can raise validity and generalizability issues due to its
introspective and subjective nature

[50]
, criticism of autoethnography has
focused on its use as an exclusive research method

[29]
. This can be
addressed by triangulating autoethnography and reflecting on its results
with data gathered using other methods

[38]
.
These characteristics were considered important in the current study,
owing to its exploratory nature. Autoethnography served during this
research as a conduit for better understanding of contextual factors in
news-reading, and also informed the design of the main study, its content
and the choice of methods.
3.2. Situated Study Methods
The author viewed the current study as an opportunity to explore new
approaches to situated studies, while still retaining a focus on the study’s
main research questions. The situated study was limited to two weeks per
participant, as previous work cites declining participant motivation in
longer studies
[11]
.
Diary Studies
Diary studies rely on participant self-reporting of events, observations and
in-situ
other relevant information. They are intended to minimise the
effect of an observer on participants, and provide a time- and cost-effective
method to gather data in comparison to observational methods such as
ethnography.
- 20 -
Carter & Mankoff
[17]
discuss two forms that a diary study can usually
take: a feedback study, in which participants are probed for information
about a specific event, or an elicitation study, in which the goal is for
participants to capture media that will be used as prompts during later
interviews. Because a separate part of the study was specifically designed
for elicitation (experience sampling and the ‘snippet’ technique – see
following sections), the diary questions were designed to complement it
and function as a feedback study.
Traditionally a paper-based method, the choice of media in diary studies
has been of particular focus as digital devices gain traction as diary study
apparatus. Although paper-based procedures have been used to conduct
diary studies related to technology use

[22,28,64]
, and some studies have
even structured a combination of the two

[48]
, the practicalities of
conducting situated studies with widely used devices, which are therefore
accessible and convenient to participants, has focused recent work on
personal mobile devices such as smartphones. Studies relying on electronic
diaries have explored topics such as information-seeking and mobile
search activities, experimenting with both timing and format of diaries
. Palen & Salzman

[4,18,21,55] [69]
, aimed to give participants a
naturalistic way of self-reporting by allowing them to call a voice-mail
system and record their accounts. However, Consolvo & Walker

[24]
pointed out that Palen & Salzman’s participants could call at their
convenience, and found voice-based apparatus to be less suitable for
interruption studies in which the situational circumstances of participants
might not be suitable for recording of voice feedback.
- 21 -
While some situated studies looked into news consumption within the
broader context of information needs in various contexts of use
[20,28,55,64]
, they did not explore the specific area of the news
consumption contexts and their effects on users. In this respect, it is
interesting to note Dimmick et al.

[31]
, which made use of a time-use diary
study to explore the various media used on a daily basis to access news,
and found that mobile channels largely did not displace traditional media,
but rather occupy new ‘niches’ in users’ daily routines.
The ‘Snippet’ Technique
A particular focus of several diary studies has been to lower the data entry
and overall participation burden inherent in such long-term, self-reporting
studies, especially when entries are done under mobile conditions. Brandt
et al.
[12]
proposed a ‘snippet’ technique in which participants chose an
input modality (text, image, video) that they were most comfortable with,
using a mobile device that they carry around with them, to capture small
in-situ
pieces (‘snippets’) of information about their experience . These
later served as cues and reminders for a more detailed web-based diary.
Since its debut in 2007, the snippet technique has been used on several
in-situ
occasions to support explorations of user context and behaviour.
Sohn et al.
[78]
used an adaptation of the technique to conduct a two-week
diary study of user information needs in mobile contexts. Church et al.
[20]
conducted a three month study with 108 participants, in which the
snippet technique was used in combination with experience sampling and
a diary study to explore daily information needs. A purpose-built web
platform used schedule information provided by participants to
- 22 -
proactively probe participants for relevant experiences several times a day,
and constructed an online diary from the information gathered by these
probes for participants to complete at a later time.
Experience Sampling Method (ESM)
The Experience Sampling Method, known as ESM, was originally
introduced as a pencil-and-paper and then pager-based

[85] [26]
method
for situated studies in psychology. Being a form of diary study itself, ESM
sets itself apart by sampling an experience the moment it occurs, rather
than relying solely on later reflective accounts, thereby avoiding
retrospective distortions involved with diaries

[89]
. While still making use
of the unobtrusive nature of diary studies, it adds the ecological validity
associated with naturalistic behavioral observation. It is also designed to
examine the link between an external context and the contents of the
mind, essentially opening a window to the user’s ‘stream of consciousness’,
and allowing researchers to examine and quantify fluctuations in this
stream over time

[47]
.
The importance of user context in HCI, coupled with the development of
computerised experience sampling

[6]
, led to the adoption of ESM in
studies ranging from interruptibility

[49] to player engagement
[51] [53]
,
and have even led to the development of custom software applications to
conduct ESM under mobile conditions

[40]
.
To provide an account of an individual's context at a given moment, ESM
typically makes use of one or more types of alert mechanisms: random,
scheduled or event-based
[24]
. Owing to the spontaneous nature of
news-reading, the current study necessitated the use of event-based
- 23 -
triggering. Consolvo and Walker note, however, that scheduled and
event-based carry the risk of cognitive bias, which this study hopes to
mitigate by further probing using a standard ‘traditional’ diary study
format and semi-structured interviews.
ESM also plays an important role in the diary study component of the
current study. The information captured during experience sampling was
used to articulate customised and targeted diary questions. Experience
sampling data that was captured every morning was used as snippets for
later articulation of diary questions by the author, and was used by
participants for reflection when completing their diary every evening.
3.3. Semi-Structured Interviews
Interviews give participants an opportunity to freely express things that
may have not come up earlier

[3]
, an opportunity especially important in
the current study, as it relied primarily on self-reporting. The
semi-structured format allows a researcher to probe participants for
further information if needed . Carter & Mankoff

[72] [17]
attempted to
improve recall from participants’ episodic memory by using captured
in-situ
media as memory cues. Mancini et al. and Nagel et al.
[59] [61]
followed in a similar path by using ESM for capture of participant
experiences using predefined questions, and prompting participants with
their responses during later interviews. Brown et al.

[14]
used captured
photos as ‘memory joggers’ in semi-structured interviews.
3.4. Custom-Built Tools & Appropriation
Earlier research sought to implement digital forms of situated
self-reporting methods by creating custom mobile applications on a variety
of technological platforms
[18,40]
. However, development of custom
- 24 -
applications has been scarce since the late 2000s, notably since the rise to
prominence of smartphones. Some studies have employed web based
data-entry platforms, but this has been done mainly for diary studies, as
such implementations rely on a stable internet connection and therefore
are unsuitable for interruption techniques such as ESM. Proprietary
platforms such as MetricWire2 and nativeye3 have recently been developed,
but they present issues of cost, especially when scaled to many
participants. The current study focuses on appropriating an existing
commercial application. A successful implementation of this approach will
hopefully lower the ‘barrier of entry’ for future situated research, and will
allow researchers to avoid issues of technical reliability typically associated
with custom-built research applications, issues less likely to be prevalent
in commercial, market-tested applications.
3.5. Triangulation
Data triangulation is the use of multiple research methods to approach a
given research question

[58]
. The exploratory nature of the current study
necessitated a combination of qualitative methods – autoethnography,
interviews, snippets and diary questions. These were designed to paint a
picture that was as holistic as possible of participants’ contexts, habits and
motivations for news consumption. Triangulating data between methods
and examining them in light of previous literature provides validation to
results, and helps to overcome weaknesses and biases inherent to different
methods (such as individualisation and introspection in autoethnography,
and retrospective distortions in diaries and interviews)

[3]
.
2
https://metricwire.com/
3
http://nativeye.com/
- 25 -
3.6. Data Analysis Approach
Grounded theory was applied as the overarching framework for analysis,
while thematic analysis

[13]
was used as the coding process for collected
data. A short overview of both methods in the context of the current study
is presented in this section.
Grounded Theory
Grounded theory is a method that guides systematic collection and
analysis of data about a situation or phenomenon, with the purpose of
generating theory that is grounded and emergent from the data

[79]
.
Grounded theory follows an iterative process, in which data collection and
analysis “blur and intertwine continually”

[43]
. The exploratory nature of
the current study called upon key elements of grounded theory, such as
theoretical sampling, constant comparison to categories that have already
started to emerge
[41]
and collection of further data as needed, memo
creation, and a bottom-up, inductive approach to coding.
Thematic Analysis
The use of multiple data collection methodologies in the current study
necessitated the use of a data analysis approach that would identify
repeated patterns across a diversified set of collected data. Indeed, Braun
and Clarke
[13]
mention this precise ability to find meaning across a range
of texts as one of the distinctive capabilities of thematic analysis.
Furthermore, the inductive, ‘bottom-up’ approach described by Braun and
Clarke as one of two primary ways in thematic analysis fits within the
overall grounded theory approach in this study.
- 26 -
Chapter 4. Methods
This chapter describes the implementation of the methodologies set out in
the previous chapter. It details how the study was designed and conducted,
and describes the procedures used to collect and analyse participant data.
4.1. Autoethnography
The first phase of research was a 3-week autoethnography study, in which
the author followed various news sources on a daily basis, in various
contexts and settings. News consumption devices of large and small form
factors were used, as well as newspapers. Emphases during this study were
on several different modes of public transport, multiple types of activities
(during work, study, social activities) and triggers for reading, such as
social media posts and notifications from news apps mobile devices.
Potential methods and apparatus for the main study were examined as
well. Two commercially available apps were selected for testing – Evernote
4
, a note-taking app, and Wunderlist, a task management app with
note-taking capabilities. A simulated diary study and experience sampling
study were conducted in the form of notes, tasks and reminders within
each of the aforementioned apps. Diary questions were presented using a
preset reminder each day within the two apps, and experience sampling
was conducted as an event-based exercise, with the trigger event bring
news-reading. Eventually Wunderlist was chosen, as the offline editing
capability in Evernote was a paid service. Offline editing was deemed
important for situations where connectivity is scarce, such as areas with
sparse mobile network coverage or subterranean transportation methods
4
https://evernote.com/
- 27 -
(i.e. the London Underground). Additionally, Wunderlist featured a more
reliable notification mechanism, a critical feature for ESM.
4.2. Background Interviews
Concurrently to the autoethnography study, background interviews were
conducted with three male participants aged 26-40. All were
acquaintances of the author, two of whom were self-defined ‘news-junkies’
– individuals who stated they consume news very frequently. This
characteristic was specifically sought after by the author during the
formative phase of the research, in order to provide a broad range of
behavioural observations to accompany those of the autoethnography
study. This allowed the author to build an initial taxonomy of potential
contextual factors, and to shape the topical direction of questions to
participants during the main study.
4.3. Pilot Study
A pilot study was conducted to simulate the combined snippet and diary
question method, as well as to test the viability of Wunderlist as a data
collection tool, with participants other than the researcher. Two of the
participants in the background interviews aged 26 and 27, as well as one
female aged 31 took part in the pilot. All were acquaintances of the author.
The study took place over a period of four days that included both
weekdays and a weekend, in order account for variations in participant
routines and contexts of use.
- 28 -
4.4. Main Study
Participants
Participants were recruited through friends and colleagues, social network
posts, and notice-board adverts at three London university campuses. The
advert (see Appendix 1) included information about remuneration,
inclusion criteria and a link to an online sign-up form. The inclusion
criteria required participants to live in the UK, be 18 years of age or above,
use an iPhone or an Android based-smartphone (for purposes of
Wunderlist app compatibility), and read the news on a regular basis using
a digital device, so that digital consumption habits could be gauged. The
signup form5 (see Appendix 2) asked respondents to enter contact and
demographic information, and included several questions intended to
confirm that participants meet the inclusion criteria. This information was
also used to diversify the study sample in terms of age, gender and
students vs. non-students. It was also used to gauge commute time, as this
was identified in literature, autoethnography and background interviews
as a news consumption opportunity. Each participant was remunerated
with £10 in cash or transfer upon completion of the study, and one £50
Amazon voucher was drawn between all participants.
Seventeen participants were recruited for the main user study, ten are
female and seven male. Participant ages ranged from 22 to 47 (M=30,
SD=8). Fourteen participants are currently living in London, and three live
outside of London but commute to the city on a daily basis. Eleven
participants are students, and six are professionals. Table 4.1 provides
demographic information and key details about each participant.
5
Form URL: http://bit.ly/UCLICnews
- 29 -
P# Age Gender Locale Commute Technical
(Home) Time Proficiency
(Self-assessed)
P1 23 Female London 10-30 minutes “Curious”, “Familiar”
P2 23 Female London 10 minutes or “Comfortable”

less
P3 27 Male London 30-60 minutes “Very comfortable”
P4 30 Female Reading 30-60 minutes “Very high”
P5 23 Female London 10-30 minutes “I do everything with

my computer, with
my phone”
P7 31 Female London 30-60 minutes “Very comfortable”
P8 22 Male London 30-60 minutes “Fairly high”
P9 25 Male London 10-30 minutes “Expert”
P10 46 Female London 30-60 minutes “Medium”

“Competent”
P11 47 Female London 30-60 minutes “High”
P12 33 Female London More than 1 “Intermediately

hour comfortable”
P13 30 Female London 30-60 minutes “I can work my way

around”
P15 25 Female London 30-60 minutes “Very comfortable”
P16 25 Male Oxford 10-30 minutes “Good”
P17 40 Male Great Chesterford More than 1 “Higher than average

(North Essex) hour but not a complete
expert”
Table 4.1: Key Participant Information and Demographics
- 30 -
Apparatus
The Wunderlist App
The Wunderlist platform was used to implement the diary study and
‘snippet’ technique / experience sampling components of the study.
Wunderlist provides a basic tier of its platform and apps free of charge,
therefore participants were not required to pay for downloading or using
the app.
Participants were asked to install the Wunderlist app on their mobile
phone, where they would receive notifications of new snippets or diary
questions, which they could tap in order to view and respond to each of
these respective items.
- 31 -
Figure 4.1 – Wunderlist main screens (from the top-left clockwise):
notification on mobile device for snippet or diary question; main screen of
the Wunderlist app with the ‘UCL News Study’ list on the bottom and a
notification indicator on the top-left; Individual task management area,
which served for completing snippets or diary questions
- 32 -
The app allows users to enter text in several fields: the ‘task’ fields adjacent
to the task-completion checkboxes, a ‘notes’ area for freeform entry of text,
and a comments thread. Users were not instructed where to answer, and
were given the freedom to answer as they chose.
On the researcher’s side, participants were managed from Wunderlist’s
software for Mac, with each participant being added as a ‘list’ that was
shared by the researcher with the participant. Both the researcher and the
participant could freely add, edit and annotate items on the list.
Figure 4.2: list creation and management from the Wunderlist app for Mac.
Each shared list in the left column represents a participant, and the area on
the right shows items on a specific list, or in the context of the current study
– snippets and diary questions (participant information redacted)
- 33 -
Procedure
The main user study consisted of three parts:
1. Instruction email
2. Snippet and diary questions (two weeks)
3. Exit interview
Instruction email
Participants who signed up via the screener form received an email (see
Appendix 3) that included a brief overview of the study, installation and
sign-up instructions for the Wunderlist app, and explanations on the types
and timing of the questions that would be sent to them along with
examples of how to answer the snippets, seeing as the snippets were
designed to be more open and vague than the diary questions.
Snippets and Diary Questions
Participants were sent two sets of questions every day – snippets and diary
questions, over a period of two weeks. Snippets were sent every morning,
asking participants to add a short string of text or a picture of their
news-reading environment that day. Sending times varied from one day to
another, so as to minimise the potential cognitive bias associated with
scheduled experience sampling alerts

[24]
. During the first 3-4 days of
participation, instructions were given with examples:
Tell us about your environment and surroundings while
reading, watching or listening to the news today – in just a few
words or even a picture (examples: ‘tired on train’, ‘bored in
queue’, ‘video, at work, can’t watch’, a picture of a busy train)
- 34 -
In following days, the examples were removed so not to lead participant
responses.
Four to five diary questions were sent every evening. Questions were
limited in number so as not to impose too high a burden on participants,
and were usually open ended so as not to limit the scope of responses.
While questions varied in wording and order from one day to another so
they would not seem repetitive to participants, they were focused on four
relatively distinct areas. Table 4.2 contains descriptions of these areas, as
well as several examples for questions participants were asked about them.
- 35 -
Question Topic Examples
Triggers for news-reading experiences What made you want to read (or listen to,
or watch) the news today?
Why did you choose to read, watch or
listen to the news at this specific time?
(more than one answer is ok)
Environment and surroundings (e.g. What did you like about your reading
concurrent activities, distractions, public environment? What did you dislike?
or social settings) Were you around others while reading? If
yes – did this affect your reading in any
way?
Did anything bother or distract you while
reading? If so – what was it?
Feelings about news consumption Did you find the experience: positive,
experience as a whole negative or neither? (please explain if
possible)
Did reading the news affect your mood in
any way? If yes – in what way?
Reasons for ending a news-reading Why did you stop reading?

experience What made you stop reading?
Table 4.2: Diary Question Topics and Examples
In the early days of the study, all participants received the same questions,
which were modified from day to day in order to attain more detailed
information about participant habits. However, it quickly became apparent
that in order to stay true to the study’s exploratory goal and to discover as
much contextual information as possible, it would be essential to
customise the diary questions for each participant on a daily basis.
Exit Interviews
Following completion of the snippet and diary question phase, participants
were interviewed. Interviews were conducted either in-person or via
Skype, and were audio-recorded for later transcription and analysis. Each
- 36 -
interview lasted between 20 to 30 minutes, and included three parts:
general and demographic data not attained in the screener questionnaire
such as exact age and occupation, targeted questions about the
participant’s responses during the situated study, which necessitated a
customisation of the interview for each participant, and questions about
participants’ experiences regarding the snippets, diary questions and
Wunderlist. A sample interview schedule, reflective of the general
structure of interviews in this study, can be seen in Appendix 4.
Ethical Considerations
The study was approved by the UCL Interaction Centre Ethics Chair, under
the project ID Number UCLIC/1415/013/Staff+MSc Marshall.
All participants were provided with digital copies of a participant
information sheet (see Appendix 5) that detailed the purpose and
procedure of the study (see Appendix 6), as well as an informed consent
form. These were sent as attachments to the instruction email. Participants
were asked to electronically confirm their agreement to both.
4.5. Data Analysis
An iterative approach to data collection was implemented, whereby
collected snippets and diary responses were sampled on a daily basis and
compared to concepts and insights that had begun to emerge. Memos were
used to note and highlight concepts that were repeated across different
participants or days.
- 37 -
Figure 4.3: Memos noting emerging concepts from study data
While theoretical sampling and constant comparison were applied during
the situated study phase, they were not used between the situated phase
and interviews, as well as between interviews. This was done in order to
schedule interviews as closely as possible to the end of the situated study,
and avoid recall errors typically associated with interviews as a
retrospective method
[63,74]
.
Interview audio was transcribed verbatim. Following this, data analysis
proceeded according to the following stages:
1. Open Coding: snippets, diaries and interviews were coded
line-by-line using the NVivo qualitative data analysis software;
Pertinent statements were labeled.
2. In the axial coding stage, relationships were identified between the
concepts and categories that emerged during the open coding stage,
and the author sought to discern the phenomenon at hand (i.e.
news consumption), with an additional emphasis on causal,
- 38 -
contextual and intervening conditions, as these were essentially the
purpose of the research, and would be the basis for later thematic
analysis.
3. Themes were reviewed in a manner roughly corresponding to the
six phases of thematic analysis set out by Braun and Clarke

[13]
,
though the process was recursive rather than linear, as noted by
Braun and Clarke – the author moved between phases as needed,
repeating and reevaluating themes and coded text as necessary.
Stages of Analysis and Corresponding Themes
Phase Activities Result
Familiarity: Sorting of insights from theoretical Affinity diagram

examination of sampling / constant comparison
study insights during situated study
Coding and Line-by-line coding of snippets, 160 codes and initial themes
initial themes diaries and interviews using in-vivo
or descriptive codes
Collation and Codes and themes grouped into Themes consolidated to high-level
Categorisation conceptually-related hierarchies, categories
compared to earlier insights
Definition and Categories reviewed, final themes Five main themes defined:
naming of final and concepts defined triggers, positive/conducive factors,
themes negative/distracting factors, barriers
to use, methodology and apparatus
(see full results in chapter 5)
Table 4.3: Coding and thematic analysis phases
- 39 -
Figure 4.4: Affinity diagram
- 40 -
Chapter 5. Findings
Findings are segmented into five primary categories, as a product of the
thematic analysis process: evaluation of methodology, triggers,
positive/conducive factors, negative/distracting factors, barriers to use. It
is important to note that these categories are used as a conduit to describe
complex, dynamic and sometimes fluid elements of context, therefore
some categories may overlap others, and contextual factors may be
suitable to more than one category.
5.1. Methodology Evaluation
This section evaluates the use of experience sampling, snippets, diary
studies and interviews in the current study, and examine their
Wunderlist
implementation using the platform as an appropriated
in-situ
apparatus for data collection.
5.1.1. Participation Rates and

In-Situ
Burden
Participation rates
Fourteen out of the seventeen participants took part for the full length of
the study, and only one participant took part for less than half of the
study’s two week period. All participants took part in exit interviews. Five
participants attached images in their snippet responses in addition to
entering text.
- 41 -
In-situ data entry burden
The burden placed on participants by snippets and diary entries was of
particular focus during the study. An effort was made to design both the
snippet and the diary questions in a manner that would attain the desired
information, but not place a demand on participants’ time that would deter
them from participating. Therefore, the author evaluated the issue during
exit interviews.
When asked about the snippets and diary questions, there was a consensus
among participants that the burden placed on them in terms of time and
effort was not only acceptable, but that it was low in most cases, and did
not have an impact on their daily routine. Some participants indicated that
they responded when they had a few minutes in which they were not
otherwise busy.
“The snippet was definitely not demanding at all, because it was a
snippet, which I thought was nice for just 'on the go', when I'm reading
the news on my phone, and was convenient; The other ones – those were
pretty quick to fill out.” [1] P3 – Interview
Some participants cited their awareness of news consumption occurrences
as the primary focus of their effort, rather than data entry itself.
“It was more that I had to be aware and think about "oh right, I've just
read some news, this is where I am right now", but it wasn't a big effort.”
[2] P4 – Interview
- 42 -
One participant even described the process of answering the snippets and
questions in an even more positive light, citing enjoyment from it.
“Not demanding at all. It was fun.” [3] P14 – Interview
Two issues were raised, however, as possible burdens. First, some reported
initial confusion as to the interface of Wunderlist and did not know in
which field to enter their answers; Section 5.5.3 explores this in more
detail. Second, several participants reported that they were not sure how to
structure or format their answers.
One participant was worried his answers were repetitive from one day to
another. While this was the intention of some of the diary questions, aimed
at gauging behaviour over time, it was not made clear to participants.
“I don't really know how helpful it is when I'm just answering the same
thing each time; And I guess that was my only concern [...] it's a little bit
annoying to type the same things sometimes, but in the end I was just a
bit like ‘I feel like I'm doing something wrong here, I feel like I'm giving
the same answer each time’ ” [4] P8 – Interview
Due to the open-ended nature of the questions, this was expected to a
degree, and could have possibly been alleviated by conducting a pre-study
briefing. However, due to the use of multiple data collection methods and
the remote nature of the study, the author did not conduct a pre-study
briefing so as not to increase the participation burden.
- 43 -
Participants were divided as to whether such a preliminary briefing would
actually alleviate the issue of being unsure about their answers. One
participant indicated that more detailed instructions would not have
changed his feelings about his answers, however his response does seem to
indicate that the very repetitiveness of certain questions, by design, helped
avoid what might have otherwise been a response bias.
“ [...] even when people say something like that

[provide additional
instructions]
, people are still kind of wary, because they know they are
part of a study, and they don't want to keep writing the same thing,
because they feel like they're not being useful, so I don't actually think
that would help” [5] P8 – Interview
Other participants did feel that the availability of the researcher to answer
any questions and provide guidance did help them and was a conducive
factor to their participation.
“I felt that you were there to guide me if I needed you.. You didn't just
throw me into the deep end and say "you need to do this, you need to
work it out, that’s wrong", because I knew you were always there... To
email, to consult, it made me feel at ease [...] If I didn't understand
anything or if I mess it up, I can just email you and you will get back to
me very quickly in a really nice, friendly way, so that [...] really made the
experience different” [6] P12 – Interview
- 44 -
5.1.2.
In-Situ
Methods
An additional methodology-related objective of the interviews was to
in-situ
gauge whether the methods achieved their intended effect, and how
participants perceived the snippets, diary questions and notifications.
Experience sampling and snippets
The majority of responses indicated that the primary objective of the
snippets was achieved – to function both as a reminder for event-based
in-situ
experience sampling, as well a low-burden capturing of cues for
later use in the diary study.
One participant described how the snippets served as a reminder, but also
described the conditionality of the reminder on news consumption.
“They
[the snippets]
were pretty good, because that was my schedule [...]
though sometimes I would hold off – I would get a notification and I
wouldn't do it immediately, because I know that I will be reading later in
the day; But I always left it on my screen [...] Since my schedule is so
flexible, you can't time it just when I’m pretty much done with my reading
[...] they were convenient and it was really good to have them as a
reminder, as something visible that was telling me to do it and not just
have it in my head.” [7] P2 – Interview
Another participant noted that strong emotions about a certain news story
was the event that caused her to complete a snippet entry.
- 45 -
“ [...] there were a couple of times that I remember that I had just read
something that had upset me, and so I actually went and answered
immediately” [8] P4 – Interview
One of the participants noted the utility of snippets as memory cues for
later reflection while answering diary questions.
“ [...] the snippets were just like… This is a diary I'm keeping of what I've
done, and be able to remember by looking at this, what I want to say
when you ask questions.. It worked for me, I liked that structure.”
Response aggregation
Alongside the role snippets played in event-based experience sampling and
capturing information for memory cueing, there were instances where
participants allocated a certain time of day to complete the snippets,
sometimes together with the diary questions, at times even completing
entries for multiple days at the same time. While the content of the entries
did supposedly reflect their actual activities, it was more likely to suffer
from recall errors

[24]
.
One of the participants described her considerations in managing the
snippets and diary entries in this way. This participant did not use
notifications on her smartphone, electing to receive all study notifications
by email.
“ [...] I don't think I answered it straight away necessarily, I would do it
when it was convenient.. So, at the end of the day I would check my
- 46 -
emails and see if there was a question, and I would do the question then...
And sometimes the previous day I might not had checked it, so I think
sometimes I did two days in one go or something.”
Another participant termed her management of snippets and diary
questions as a backlog. Despite receiving notifications, she forgot to
complete questions some of the time, and answered at a later time.
“I'm just not very good at keeping up with answering it daily [...] Like
yesterday I just didn't read news and I just totally forgot about filling it
in... Umm, yeah, and sometimes I just backlog it.”
5.1.3. Wunderlist Interface and Functionality
Participant interviews provided the author with insights regarding the
suitability of Wunderlist for the current study. However, some of these
insights can possibly be generalised for future design and appropriation of
in-situ
technological apparatus in self-reported studies.
Participants’ perspectives
Two main issues with the Wunderlist interface were reported by
participants. First, the existence of several fields in which participants
could respond to the snippets or diary questions was confusing. Several
participants contacted the researcher during the study to enquire about
this, while others simply chose the field most convenient for them. This
- 47 -
was not an issue in terms of data analysis, as all fields could be exported
from Wunderlist, but it was a source of some confusion to participants.
“I guess there were a few places where you could plug your answer [...] I
was a bit unsure where you wanted it, like straight after the question or
in the notes part at the bottom of the series of questions”
Second, and more critically, participants noted that when responding to
diary questions from the Wunderlist mobile app, they could not see the
bottom ‘notes’ text field if there were multiple questions in the task
checkbox area. This meant that they had to scroll multiple times from one
area to the other in order to answer questions.
- 48 -
Figure 5.1: diary ‘task’ in the Wunderlist iPhone app, with multiple
questions. When the page is scrolled to the top, the bottom ‘notes’ field is
not visible (left), and when the page is scrolled to the bottom, part of the the
top question area is not visible (right)
One participant noted this had an effect on navigability within the app.
“I found it hard to really find my way around the app and to answer the
questions. It was on my phone [...] so the screen wasn't big enough for me
to see that there is [...] at the bottom of the page where I can put in the
answer”
- 49 -
Another participant described that scrolling between the questions and the
‘notes’ field meant that she did not always remember which question she
was answering, or what its contents were.
“ [...] whenever I'm answering it, I need to remember which question I
was answering and then click into the notes, answer my question, and
then click on it again and see what is the next question”
Third, the process of onboarding participants (i.e. adding them to a ‘list’
within the Wunderlist app) was somewhat unreliable at times. This
process involves an automatically generated invitation email to each list,
but a couple of participants reported that they did not receive the email.
The issue was resolved by re-adding participants to their respective lists.
Researcher’s perspectives
On the researcher side, the Wunderlist platform had several issues relating
primarily to scalability. First, Wunderlist does not allow a list to have a
display name that is separate from the title participants see. This meant
that in order for participants to be presented with a short title when they
received notifications, all lists had to be named ‘UCL news study’, making
it difficult for the author to differentiate between them within the software.
This was resolved by the slightly cumbersome workaround of adding each
list to a ‘folder’, which is not viewable to shared editors of a list (i.e.
participants). Second, Wunderlist does not allow for single or batch
copying of items from one list to another, meaning that the author had to
enter all of the snippets and diary questions manually. While tedious, it
- 50 -
was manageable in a study of 17 participants, but studies of a larger sample
will require some degree of automation.
Importance of mobile data-entry capabilities
Participants valued the fact that Wunderlist’s mobile app allowed them to
respond to snippets and diary questions at a location and time of their
choosing, indicating that the ability to provide full responses ‘on the go’
was conducive to their participation.
“I did it
[respond in Wunderlist]
on the overground and the bus, because
that was super-convenient, and in a half-hour on the bus I could be doing
this for five minutes; I think just being able to access

[Wunderlist]
on my
mobile phone” [14] P3 – Interview
The majority of participants indicated that they were either not in
situations where connectivity was an issue, or they prefered not to use
their mobile device at all when connectivity is not available. However,
several participants provided responses that reinforced the decision to
provide offline editing capabilities in the study.
“I know how it works

[the Wunderlist app]
, it will just not send it at that
moment, and once I get the connection back it will push the updates, so.. I
kind of know that's going to happen anyway, so I had no issues with
using it.. I wasn't really thinking it wouldn't update there”
“I think a lot of the times I used it when I was in the tube, so I think I still
managed to use it, even without the wifi.. I don't know. But I didn't have a
- 51 -
point where I was worried about it, because I felt like it will save my
answers anyway.” [16] P15 – Interview
5.2. Triggers for News Consumption
Triggers are specific drivers for news consumption in a given situation, and
are defined in this study as the reason stated by a participant that directly
led to a given news consumption experience.
5.2.1. Internal triggers
Internal triggers are prompts for news-reading generated by the
participant’s own psyche, rather than by external stimulation. The
underlying drivers for these triggers can range from momentary needs and
level of interest in news to boredom and the level of usage for personal
computing devices.
Break from study or work
A theme with nearly universal prevalence among participants was the use
of news consumption as a break activity from a different activity that
usually required a higher level of concentration. Reading, rather than
listening or watching, was usually cited as the way in which news was
consumed for this purpose.
“I generally use news-reading as a break task from work activities... I
definitely go back whenever I feel the need to take a break from work.”
- 52 -
The reason cited for choosing news-reading as a break activity also enjoyed
almost the same level of universality. While this reason was described
differently between participants, the consensus seemed to be that reading
the news is an activity that still requires a certain level of cognitive
investment, but not at the level required by work or study.
“[...] it's sort of a quality break [...] switching to something that’s
relatively similar, the same kind of concentration is involved, but it’s still
different enough that it provides a rest from what I was working on”
The difference in cognitive demands was specifically noted in this respect
by several participants, with some saying that their news-reading will not
involve absorption of consumed content, merely having it serve as a form
of cognitive downtime or a contrast in the type of activity being performed:
If I'm really burnt out I won't absorb any of the news, but it gives me
something to focus on that's not concentrated on writing or coding or any
of the other things that I'm supposed to be doing, just as an alternative to
focus my brain on. Reading the news isn't that mentally tasking.. Since I
use it as a break task, I don't necessarily absorb the news very well... I
don't recall it once I go back to work and start doing that; A few hours
later I will be ‘what did I read again?’ ” [19] P3 – Interview
- 53 -
“ [...] if you're working in an office you generally need to break, rest your
eyes for a few minutes, look at something else, focus on something that’s a
different from your computer screen [...] a bit of a refresher [...] and then
you'll have a renewed perspective when you jump back into it.”
Several participants cited time management as an additional benefit to this
type of break. They noted the fact that news stories have a defined
beginning and end as conducive to their subsequent resumption of work.
“ [...] it also has a beginning and the end – when I finish reading an
article I go back to work. I can obviously read another article, but that
will extend it by only a little” [4] P2 – Interview
Baumeister et al. ego depletion

discuss a process of
[7] , where individual
volition is essentially a limited resource that is drawn upon for
cognitively-tasking activities. While this theory does not indicate the
mechanisms of depletion and replenishment, the use of news-reading as a
break task might be an indication for this process of ego depletion and
replenishment by participants. It should be noted that the manner in
which participants manage these breaks likely indicates a fair amount of
residual volition and willpower, especially the time-management aspects
of this exercise mentioned by participant 4 quoted above.
- 54 -
5.2.2. External triggers
This category included stimulation that is external to the participant’s own
thoughts, and was stated as causing the participants to initiate a news
consumption experience.
Notifications and widgets
Notifications are small displays of text that appear on a computing device,
usually a smartphone or a tablet computer, and alert the user to a certain
occurrence or event. Widgets are slightly larger ‘windows’ of content, that
usually show a string of informative text and an image or graphic. The
main difference between notifications and widgets is their permanence on
screen of a device – notifications are momentary and disappear within a
few seconds while widgets permanently reside on the user’s screen until
they are removed. As triggers for news consumption, both elicit the same
action from users and are therefore classified together in this category.
It should be noted that both notifications and widgets can be tapped by the
user to read more about a given story, giving a choice whether to pursue a
story more in-depth. Participant responses indicated that this is a frequent
decision they make – whether the story is worth pursuing in-depth or
perhaps the information within the notification or widget will suffice.
One participant indicated that this decision depends on the type of story,
and whether she is otherwise busy. At times she will be content with
consuming a news item exclusively via a notification.
- 55 -
“The push notifications from the Guardian app keep me informed without
my having to read the story (or do anything).”
[21] P11 – Snippet
This participant later explained in detail:
“ [...] 'England won the Ashes'.. I don't actually need more information
than that, for example [...] It's completely dependent on how interested I
am in the story and also what I'm doing at the time [...] they pop up at
any time during the day, and I don’t always have the liberty to check it
immediately, because I'm doing something else, and sometimes I forget
what it was before I've come back [...] it just depends completely on [...]
Whether I have the luxury to click through.” [22] P11 – Interview
Social feed skimming
Participants described a logic for news consumption via social media that
is similar to the one they described for notifications and widgets – i.e. a
decision of whether to further pursue an item or not.
“I pick up a lot of stuff that I read through the news feed of my Facebook
page, [...] I find that more convenient way of accessing it, because it's sort
of summarised in the posts that appear in my news feed”
“
[I]
scroll down and see if there's anything interesting [...] If you're
interested then you'll click on it [...] If not then just on to the next one. So
it's just a quick scan of things to see if something really interesting has
happened” [24] P14 – Interview
- 56 -
Waiting for people or technology
The theme of waiting as a trigger was identified in the autoethnography
and preliminary interview phase, and retained a prevalence during the
main study. Two main types of waiting were identified – waiting for people
and waiting for a process, usually a technological one such as a computer
program, to finish its course. This can possibly be viewed in light of earlier
work about ‘dead times’ for workers

[71]
and more specifically – the
consumption of news in ‘interstices’

[31]
.
While a user-initiated action, it seems that news consumption in a waiting
situation serves a targeted need. One participant described his experience
of using reading as a ‘time-filler’ when waiting for friends, and illustrated
the effect on the type of content he will read and his receptiveness to it.
“[...] you're waiting for a friend for like an hour or something [...] it
becomes a bit tedious, because I know that I'm using this just to fill time,
as opposed to when I'm actually interested in something to read. [...]
sometimes I really enjoy it when I'm actually saying ‘ok, I actually want
to see what's going on today’, but other times it's just because I don't have
anything to do... It's just to check whatever is going on there; And usually
when that kind of thing happens, I get through everything relatively
quickly and I'm trying to find absolutely anything to do”
Another participant discussed the effect of anticipation while waiting for
people more poignantly, but pointed out that he sees news-reading as a
more productive ‘time-killing’ exercise than playing a game.
- 57 -
“ [...] it's really just killing time until something happens or until someone
will meet me; It can be a bit frustrating, because if it's something that you
are waiting for and you know it starts at a certain time, you can kind of
judge what you will read, but if you're waiting for someone, it's
frustrating – they'll arrive and you are halfway through reading
something... Because I tend not to go back to things as well, I think it's not
as much of a relaxing experience. It's more killing time in a more
productive way than playing a game, which I do sometimes.”
Situations of waiting for a certain process or machine to finish were also
noted. The difference here, it seems, is that as opposed to waiting for a
person, participants could better gauge the beginning and end time of the
waiting experience.
“ [...] my job is basically checking software, and sometimes I have to run
long processes on a computer and wait for them to finish. I always use
this time for catching up on the news”
[27] Background Interview #2
Media multitasking
Participants indicated that there will be situations in which they are
consuming another type of media, television for example, and they will
turn to news-reading on a digital device as a second activity.
This behaviour was documented by the author himself during
autoethnography. These occurrences were especially common when the
- 58 -
primary content source was one that did not elicit the author’s full
attention or interest.
“I was watching an interview on TV together with my flatmate, and at
some point it didn’t really interest me anymore; Even though I was still
listening intermittently, I switched to reading an article I had left off
before” [28] Autoethnography
One participant noted this will happen when he is watching a television
show together with his partner, and is not particularly interested in its
content.
“I'll be watching movies that I've seen before or my girlfriend's watching
it – I'll pick up my tablet and read the news or do something else as well.”
The same participant further elaborated later that in such a scenario of
split attention between different forms of media, he will continuously
evaluate the perceived benefit from each source and compare between
them, terming this process as an ‘interest/engrossment tradeoff’.
“I will definitely scan a bit between the two [...] I guess it depends on how
engrossed I am in either; I guess if the movie [...] has a slow part, then I'll
move back to the news, and if the news is really interesting, then I'll get
engrossed in that and focused on that, and then once I'm done I'll look
back up and say ‘this is going on’ in the movie [...] I'll go back and forth.
So it's about the interest/engrossment tradeoff between the two, which
will make me go back and forth [...] I suck at multitasking [...] I'll be
- 59 -
listening for keywords, cues, or if something loud happens on TV, but
otherwise, I'm not focused on what's happening on the other device as
much. With that said, it does cause me to scan back and forth
intermittently, based on how engrossed I am.”
Morning habit
A majority of participants indicated that they will consume news in the
early stages of their morning routine – in bed or while preparing and
eating breakfast. Participants described this behaviour as habitual and
taking place almost every morning, except in unforeseen circumstances
such as lateness or being in a hurry.
Two reasons were generally cited for this morning habit. The first is, to use
the term given by several participants, ‘wanting to know what’s going on in
the world’, in other words – feeling a need to be updated about the news.
“When I just wake up and I want to know what's going on in the world,
so in the morning I always check it [...] it's a habit, because I wake up... I
always wake up quite early in the morning, so I can take my time to start
easily, have my breakfast, and while I have my breakfast I'll scroll down
the news.” [31] P5 – Interview
The second reason for morning news consumption was procrastination.
This was cited either together or apart from the need to be updated about
the news.
- 60 -
“I don’t know where it comes from
[the habit of reading the news in the
morning]
… Maybe it’s just that I don’t want to start immediately with
working, and I just need to ease myself into it”
“I just woke up and I don’t want to do anything other than using my
phone in bed, so yeah... After I'm finished to read and replying to all the
messages that I need to reply to [...] I'll just be lazy in bed and read
something before I got up” [33] P15 – Interview
5.3. Contextual Factors – Positive/Conducive
Positive conducive
or factors are defined, in this analysis, as contextual
elements that have a positive effect on their news consumption experience.
Participants generally described these factors as being conducive to a more
positive and pleasurable experience, and attested to being more receptive
and open to consumption of richer and longer content.
Alertness and mood
The effect of an individual’s affective state was indicated during the study
in several respects. One of them is the effect on the length of news items
that a participant was consuming, their type – ‘hard news’ vs. ‘soft news’.
‘Hard news’ is thought to be that which informs about such topics as war
and conflict or government corruption, while ‘soft news’ usually covers
topics such as celebrity news or ‘man bites dog’-type stories

[56]
.
Several participants linked higher levels of alertness to consuming longer
items that can be classified as ‘hard news’, describing themselves as more
- 61 -
open and receptive to this type of reading when they are alert rather than
tired. Additionally, participants indicated that a positive affective state will
be conducive to the same positive effects of a high level of alertness, and
vice versa. This ostensibly creates a spectrum of sorts, where an
individual’s emotional and cognitive capabilities in a given context are
reflected in their news consumption.
Figure 5.2: User state – news consumption spectrum
One participant stated that a low level of alertness has the effect on her of
greatly reducing her attention and receptiveness to content, even to the
point of stopping her reading.
“ [...] that’s a big factor

[being tired]
. I know that if I start reading an
article and I’m tired I feel like I’m just LOSING IT, I feel like nothing is
coming into my brain.. Nothing is going in. So at that point I stop”
Another participant stated that while she will sometimes read news before
she goes to sleep at night, she will not want to read stories that might be
upsetting.
- 62 -
“I won't try to read anything too harrowing
[before going to sleep]
, you
know, we're talking just interesting stuff... I try not to read about ISIS
before I go to bed” [35] P12 – Interview
The same participant described a negative affective state at the end of a
day that can be brought about by stressful events during the day, and can
have a detrimental effect on her news consumption.
“It depends on my mood or the level of activity and stress in my life, how
tired I am, even sometimes if the train is packed, or there's a bad energy
on it, or it's really hot, or I'm not seated, you know, things like that.. they
all play a part. [36] P12 – Interview
A participant described the positive end of this spectrum in reference to
reading the Observer newspaper on Sunday. She describes a weekly ritual
that, in her mind, is associated with a positive affective state and feelings
of relaxation; These feelings, she says, have a strong correlation to her
receptiveness during the news consumption experience.
Sunday is like the one day where I [...] just relax in the morning, because
I just have such a busy life [...] that's my treat for Sunday, to just be able
to lie in bed with a cup of tea and read the papers [...] but I usually have
the radio on as well; So it's about time to relax [...] to me that's a really
big luxury [...] I don't get to do it very often [...] I will read something
much more in-depth, and longer, because I have the luxury of the time.
- 63 -
It is important to note that the aforementioned spectrum is not
dichotomous nor rigid, and certain classifications, such as the distinction
between ‘hard news’ and ‘soft news’ can appear the other side of their
usual placing on the spectrum. For example, the same participant quoted
above described her Sunday experience as one in which she consumes ‘soft
news’.
“I always buy the Saturday Guardian and read it the day after, just
because I like the content [...] I read stuff like fashion and lifestyle and
food” [38] P11 – Interview
Background activity
The issue of background activity was one that split participants on a
diverse spectrum of preferences. Some stated that background sounds are
conducive for doing work. Others expressed ambivalence towards
background stimulations while reading. Additionally, there was a
noticeable number of participants that attested to being distracted by
background activity, though the types of stimulations that would cause this
varied between participants.
One participant noted that listening to music and reading the news will be
a common combination for him while on the train, citing that the music is
actually conducive to his concentration. This finding is notable as
contrasting with the author’s own experiences during autoethnography.
“I'm actually used to it for my studies [...] having music in the
background. It doesn't divert my attention, it only makes me know there's
something playing in the background; I can't concentrate without it. So
- 64 -
when I want to listen to music and read the news, I stay concentrated, it
doesn't split my attention. I mean, it does split my attention, but I'm
focused on the news, not on the music.” [39] P6 – Interview
The same participant noted that a shorter, focused background sound like
a train announcement will cause him to split his attention, a statement
that contrasts the two types of background noises in terms of
news-reading.
“if I'm on the train and it's very crowded, and I need to get a grip or
monitor the next station where I'll be getting off, I have to split my
attention between reading the news and knowing what's going on
around me.” [40] P6 – Interview
Another participant indicated that background stimulation will affect the
type of media she will choose for news consumption.
“ [...] when I'm just walking on the street, I cannot read something and
concentrate, so I prefer to listen to the podcast.”
Other participants indicated a dichotomic choice between news
consumption and other activities such as listening to music or watching
TV. One participant even noted that this switch will have a specific trigger
– she will switch from reading to music when background sounds distract
her from reading.
- 65 -
“I try to then
Participant: [when there is noise]
turn the music on. I'm not
focusing with the distractions, so I just try to listen to music and that's it
[...] mostly when I listen to music I don't tend to read anything.”
Interviewer:
“So you're saying you'll usually choose between reading or
music.”
Participant:
Yes, that's right.
Interviewer:
“ [...] So you're saying, basically, that if there's a noise in the
background that's bothering to read, you'll switch to music.
Participant:
Yeah.
Other participants noted the more visual and physical aspects of
background activity as factors that affected their news consumption
experience. Some participants noted visual distractions as detrimental to
their concentration rather than auditory ones.
“There was a lot of movement in the room, which I caught from the
corner of my eye, so that kind of broke my attention [...] It can be less
distracting
[auditory stimulations]
, you can get into a sort of ‘zone’, where
you tune it out, but in that situation I was sitting in a way that I was just
faced with people, and I was looking directly at the path that people were
taking, and I had my head in a way that the noise didn’t get to me, but
still… I remember that. [43] P2 – Interview
Other participants noted crowding as detrimental factor to reading on
public transport. One participant noted that he perceives a personal safety
issue with such a situation.
- 66 -
“If I'm standing somewhere super-crowded, I'm not going to grab my
phone and read the news, like on the bus [...] same with the overground
during rush-hour, it can get packed and I'm not going to break out my
phone [...] it's just uncomfortable to do so, and also someone can just
grab it and walk away” [44] P3 – Interview
Another participant noted privacy aspects of standing within a dense
crowd on the train.
“I tend to see other people looking. You get the feeling like someone else is
also watching what you're reading, and that's not really nice and makes
me a bit uncomfortable.” [45] P7 – Interview
It should be noted that even with the consensus among participants as to
the distracting effects of crowding, some participants viewed them as
tolerable and are not willing to forego news-reading unless the situation is
extreme.
“ [...] on the tube it's always really really crowded.. Sometimes it's hard to
[...] it's too crowded to even get your phone out and have a look at it [...]
it's loud and it's bumpy [...] you can't really focus on what you're looking
at, but equally it's something to do while you're spending those 12 minutes
or however long on the tube.” [46] P11 – Interview
- 67 -
5.4. Contextual Factors – Negative/Distracting
Negative distracting
or factors are defined, in this analysis, as contextual
elements that participants attested hampered the news consumption
experience, possibly causing them to alter the experience in some way but
not end it. This can be done by changing media or device they use to
consume news, or to consume content of a different type (e.g. length or
topic).
Connectivity
Lack of Internet connectivity was cited by participants as a factor that will
hamper news consumption. Participants cited three possible responses to
this type of situation – finding workarounds to continue reading on their
digital device even when offline, switching to paper form, or avoiding the
news consumption experience altogether.
While dedicated article-saving apps such as Pocket6 have been developed
for offline reading scenarios, a prevalent solution among study
participants was to open multiple tabs in their mobile Internet browser –
an item ‘hoarding’ of sorts, though one user did note his frustration at the
lack of serendipitous discovery in this situation.
“Usually on the public transport, I open news sites in different tabs and I
activate it; So I find that not very comfortable, because in fact, I need to
check the link, it doesn't go through because there is no signal”
6
https://getpocket.com/
- 68 -
Another participant noted the use of the use of the ‘offline mode’ in the
news app she uses on her phone.
“ [...] the Guardian app actually works offline, you just can't get the
pictures and there's certain content that you can't get, but you can
actually get the stories, even if you haven't got a signal, which is
amazing, and really good” [48] P11 – Interview
For several participants, switching to a newspaper, usually one of the free
newspapers handed out on trains, was the preferable option in a situation
of no connectivity.
“ [...] if I'm on the tube as well, I tend to pick up the free papers... I read
the news that way, so there’s not much point in me looking at the BBC
website when I'm on the tube.. And also, I can't get reception [...] ”
As noted, some participants prefered to avoid the news consumption
experience altogether in a no connectivity scenario.
“If I'm in the tube, I cannot access the Internet, so I don't think I will do
anything if I was on the tube” [50] P1 – Interview
- 69 -
Smartphone = inconvenient experience?
There was a consensus among participants that news-reading on a phone,
while unavoidable on many occasions, did not provide what they perceived
as the optimal experience. A prevalent reason cited for this is that the
phone is not conducive to serendipitous discovery of additional content.
One participant noted that she feels it is not as easy for her to actively
search for more information while using her phone.
Participant:
“If I want to explore more about the news, of course it's
easier if I'm in the library, or behind my desk in front of my computer,
because it's easier to look for more information, because on the phone
you're not really going to look up everything, it takes too much time.”
Interviewer:
“It takes too much time in terms of interaction with the
device, in terms of typing?
Participant:
“Yeah, to go from the news app, to Google, to search for
things, and going back to the news.”
Another participant, noting that the reading experience itself was
satisfactory, described a more passive process of serendipitous discovery
that was hampered by the form factor and presentation of content on the
phone.
The actual reading experience is fine when you're reading an article that
you want to read and it's just text [...] but I feel like it doesn’t facilitate
easy links into other similar things [...] You can kind of scroll down
through the article and there are related items on certain websites, at the
- 70 -
bottom. I think it's something to do with the screen size, that it just feels
very claustrophobic [...] Once things are translated from a website down
into a small screen, it just feels very dense [...] there's no sort of space to...
I don't know... It feels very tight and kind of difficult to navigate to other
things, you know? If there was something in there that you wanted to
read more about, it's not as simple as opening another tab in your
browser on your laptop, for example” [52] P14 – Interview
Another commonly cited reason for a perceived inconvenience using the
phone was that certain websites were not customised for viewing on the
small screen of the phone. One participant noted this during the study in
the context of serendipitous discovery out of Facebook use:
“Accessing news wasn't really so convenient, since some of the sites I
went to were links from Facebook, and didn't have mobile sites or apps”
[53] P4 – Diary
Another participant noted the same while discussing serendipitous
discovery while reading another piece of news.
“ [...] it's also frustrating when people haven't [...] translated things
properly for mobile, which happens quite a lot, where text doesn't resize
properly. All of that sort of stuff makes it less, you know, comfortable.”
It should be noted that this perception of inconvenience was not universal
among participants. Several participants, primarily from the 23-25 age
range, clearly stated that in most cases a smartphone is their preferable
- 71 -
device to consume news. One participant noted that when having the
choice between her phone and a larger form-factor device such as a laptop,
she will still choose her phone.
Participant:
“ [...] for reading at home, it's not on the computer; Basically,
I will use my mobile phone [...] while I'm using the computer and doing
some professional work like typing some important stuff, if I want to
have some leisure time, I will take my mobile phone and send some
message to my friends and also look for some news on my mobile phone.
Interviewer:
“When you're taking that break, if you're reading, would you
prefer to take that break on your mobile phone or on your computer?”
Participant:
“I will prefer to use the mobile phone.”
Another participant noted her preference for reading on her phone,
however she did indicate that her consumption will usually be focused on
shorter pieces.
“Some of the snippets that I put down

Participant: [‘snippets’ sent during
the study]
, they were read on the laptop, especially the ones when I'm at
work [...] but other than that I mainly read news on my phone. [...] not
too much in the office, but when I'm at home or on the go, so yeah, it's on
the phone a lot of the times.
Interviewer:
And would you say that you usually go for shorter pieces or
more in depth things?
Participant:
I think shorter pieces. [56] P15 – Interview
- 72 -
Multitasking
Participants indicated that in certain situations, they will consume news
while performing another concurrent task. The type of concurrent tasks
were varied in both type and location, but generally had the effect of
splitting attention, thereby decreasing engagement and making a
breakaway from news consumption more likely.
One participant pinpointed news-reading as the ‘go-to’ concurrent task
while she is making tea, making the case why news-reading, specifically, is
most suitable in that situation.
“I almost always read the news when I’m making tea, it’s a practical
thing, you can’t do anything else; And if you go away for like two
minutes, the quantity

will go down.. So it seems like a good couple of
minutes.” [57] P2 – Interview
The same participant noted the effect of a concurrent task on the type of
content she will choose to consume.
“ [...] if I’m reading on my phone [...] in between things and in a situation
where something else is going on, reading as a way to pass the time [...]
If it’s a story that requires me to think, to process what’s going on, what
the page is telling me, then I can’t really get into it that much”
- 73 -
Another participant noted the productivity aspect as a driver for
multitasking while consuming news, and reiterated the effect it has on the
type of content that he will consume.
“ [...] if I'm at home I tend to feel more comfortable reading or watching
the news when I'm doing something else [...] I tend to feel like I'm being
unproductive if I spend an extended period of time reading or watching
the news, so I tend to do it when I take a break from something else or
actually engaged in doing something else, so I sometimes have the news
channel on while I'm sort of tidying up, or doing something that doesn't
require [...] intellectual focus [...] when I'm consuming news while I'm
doing something else, it tends to be smaller articles or news”
The tentativeness of user engagement in news consumption was also noted
in the context of multitasking. One participant noted, in the context of
reading on public transport, that news will always be secondary in terms of
cognitive effort.
“Generally I would stop reading the news for almost everything else. I
can always finish reading later.” [60] P17 – Diary
The same participant later elaborated on the issue, noting that this
multitasking and the secondary role that news occupies in terms of his
attention relates directly to the utilitarian role he assigns to news
consumption.
- 74 -
“I don't think that there are many news items
[for which]
I would
completely block everything out and not quite notice there's something
else happening, it's like [...] just a distraction half the time. If I'm going to
catch up with the news, it's really not important.
The sum of these statements indicate that there are instances in which
participants will knowingly and willingly enter a situation in which they
are not devoting their full attention to the news consumption experience,
but it is nevertheless viewed by them as a functionally ideal activity for that
specific context.
5.5. Barriers to Use
Barriers are factors that lead to a situation where a user who would
otherwise be open to news consumption will choose not to do so. This can
be while already within a news consumption experience and choosing to
end the experience, or alternatively choosing not to consume news in a
certain situation at all.
‘Me time’
Several participants described some instances of their travel time on public
transport as one in which they do not want to engage in any form of news
consumption, or even any other activity. They described these occurrences
as opportunities for introspection, reflection on their own thoughts, and
even relaxation. In this scenario, participants will avoid consuming any
sort of media. Kaplan

[54]
noted similar scenarios of ‘attentional fatigue’
- 75 -
when discussing nature as a central part of a wider framework for
countering such fatigue and restoring cognitive capabilities.
“ [...] sometimes when you're walking and you're on public transport, you
just want your mind to be clear” [62] P9 – Interview
Another participant described this experience not only as a way to ‘clear
the mind’, but also as an environment in which she is secluded from
unwanted individuals or pieces of information, despite being on a
populated train.
“Sometimes I'll just be ‘this is me time’ [...] no one can get me, I'm not
going to fill my head with more information, there's enough going on
around me, my head's spinning with stuff, I just can't put anymore stuff
in it, even if it's a distraction, I need to relax my mind, and the train, for
me, is the only place I can actually do that; Because nobody can get me,
and nobody knows me, and if suddenly I bump into people I know it's hell
[...] It's nice to just stare out the window and empty my head”
While ‘me time’ describes a positive affective state, it was stated by
participants as a reason for not consuming news, therefore is classified as a
barrier. However, future work may explore ways to develop adaptive
content and interfaces for such an affective state.
- 76 -
News overload
Some participants described negative emotions triggered by cumulative or
successive instances of what they perceived as bad news, i.e. stories of a
negative nature. While all participants who attested to this chose to stop
consuming news as a result, the differences between them were in the
intensity of emotions. One participant was relatively vivid:
“there are days when [...] especially if there's been a barrage of [...] Bad
news, recently... Sometime you just want to put your head in the sand
and go ‘I don't want to know today’ “ [64] P11 – Interview
Another participant described a state of disinterest in such a case.
“most of the news I don't find very interesting, like who killed who this
weekend or a famous person that died, you know, doing something
stupid, I don't find that interesting” [65] P17 – Interview
Kinetosis
Several participants noted the issue of dizziness, nausea and an otherwise
uncomfortable physical feeling while using a digital device to read while on
a moving vehicle such as a bus or a train.
One participant noted that she resolves the issues by only reading books,
using a customised app that rectifies the motion-induced unpleasantness.
This could possibly indicate a desire on the part of the user to carry on
with the reading experience despite the physical obstacle, finding solutions
to manage the issue.
- 77 -
“If I'm on public transportation I'll read a book, I don't usually read
news. [...] I have a tendency to get motion sickness, and reading a book...
I have a particular app on my phone that makes it very easy to read
books, whereas reading pretty much anything else is very.. It gives me
motion sickness.” [67] P4 – Interview
Another participant indicated that she will avoid reading while she is
standing on the train, as the simultaneous balancing and reading actions
cause dizziness and nausea, however this does not occur when she is
seated.
“ [...] if it's too crowded then I wouldn't have a place to sit, I will have to
hang on to something like hold the rails or just try to balance myself, and
I don’t want to read while I'm doing that, and usually I get this dizziness
when I'm trying to read while I'm balancing... So, I switch to music and I
won’t read while I'm standing.” [68] P7 – Interview
For another participant, the way to prevent dizziness is to eliminate
reading altogether and listen to a podcast instead:
“If I was on the bus, if I read news or if I read anything, I will feel dizzy,
so I prefer to listen to podcasts.. Also, this applies to when I'm just
walking on the street, I cannot read something and concentrate, so I
prefer to listen to the podcast.” [69] P1 – Interview
- 78 -
Chapter 6. Discussion
The current study discovered a variety of contextual factors that play a role
in news consumption. True to its initial goal, the study revealed factors
that are mostly of a phenomenological nature – relating less to
informational and computational aspects of a given context, and relating
more to the social, cultural and behavioral elements that comprise an
individual's context of use.
The study discovered that these contextual factors are not fixed or
predetermined, but rather tend to be driven by ephemeral user needs.
Furthermore, these contextual factors often do not stand alone as singular
drivers of an individual's actions, but rather interplay between them and
affect each other, with user action being a result of a ‘balancing act’
between these contextual factors.
The discovery of such contextual factors acting as determinants of news
consumption lends support to the call by Dourish

[34]
for a more
phenomenological approach to context. Furthermore, it reinforces
Suchman’s theory of situated action

[80]
by demonstrating the role of
interpretation and sense-making processes on how users interact with
technology, as well as the dynamic, momentary nature of user actions
within a given context.
This study also supports the notion that mobility plays an ever increasing
role in technology use generally, and in regard to news consumption
specifically. This is especially noticeable in the fluid patterns of device use
- 79 -
in relation to the space in which they are being used, such as participants’
preference to read news on their phone at home or at work. That being
said, some participants did critique elements of the experience that mobile
phones offer in terms of navigation and serendipitous discovery of related
content.
These situational and phenomenological findings in regard to context,
coupled with a news experience increasingly shaped by mobility, are
important to one of the central findings of this paper – the creation of
news consumption ‘places’ by users. Participants indicated that they
appropriate different spaces and technological devices to create contexts
and environments for news consumption that suit specific and dynamic
momentary needs, often in a manner independent of physical location.
These findings are illustrative of the approach by Harrison and Dourish
[46]
to the appropriation of spaces and technology as creators of context.
The current study also illustrated the value of situated methods for the
exploration of user context. Triangulation of methods provided the author
with real-time, non-recall insights thanks to experience sampling, as well
as insights into participants’ sense-making and interpretation processes
thanks to a diary study as a reflective method and interviews as a
retrospective tool. Even more importantly, the study’s high participation
rates indicate that participant burden and compliance is not necessarily
dependent on the number of methods used, but rather on the way in which
they are administered – factors such as questions design, question timing,
and apparatus.
- 80 -
6.1. News consumption is opportunistic
Situation matters more than physical location – users create
appropriated spaces and technology to consume news
To a considerable degree, the findings of this study support the notion of
place as a space that goes through a process of appropriation by users

[46]
.
This appropriation happens both by attaching specific purposes and
meanings to situations, but also by appropriating technology in a variety of
ways, some which were unexpected by the author, especially in light of
autoethnography results and early interviews. If one descriptive word
would be chosen for these findings, it would be ‘adaptability’. Participants
adapted and appropriated a wide range of situations for news
consumption.
In many situations, participants saw elements such as background activity,
lack of connectivity, alertness and an additional concurrent task not as
barriers, but perhaps merely as detracting factors in an array of
considerations that shaped their news consumption experience. In certain
instances, factors such as suitability of news consumption to a specific
situation took precedence over other detracting factors. In other cases,
factors such as kinetosis (motion sickness) and the desire for ‘me time’
showed prevalence that was unexpected to the author, with participants
not engaging in any sort of news consumption or even technology use.
Some elements described by participants, such as availability of
positivist
connectivity, support a more more informational and approach
to context, as discussed by Abowd et al. and Dey

[1] [30]
. However, most of
- 81 -
the factors cited as influencing news consumption, such as alertness,
multitasking and situational needs such as waiting for others – supported
the phenomenological definition of context offered by Dourish

[34]
.
Furthermore, findings indicated that there is a constant interplay between
the different factors, lending even further support to the approach set out
by Dourish, in which context is constantly being interpreted by users and
negotiated between them.
The findings show that the factors affecting participants’ news
consumption habits were not only numerous, but also changed within an
experience as a perceived need to do so arose. This supports Suchman’s
theory of situated action

[80]
in several ways. First, participants indicated
in-situ
that they changed their actions as a result of both internal and
external stimulations. For example, participants indicated that when
waiting for other people, they will continuously adapt the type of content
they read in terms of topic and length, in order to suit the waiting time and
level of concentration they predict they will have. Another example is in
the case of media multitasking, where concurrent activities of watching
television and reading the news encouraged a continuous

in-situ
reassessment of media consumption preferences, in what was described as
an ‘interest/engrossment tradeoff’.
Consumption characteristics are shaped by momentary needs
Examined in a broad perspective, the results of this study indicate that
momentary needs are a primary driver for news consumption. Participants
generally viewed news consumption as a break or leisure activity, which
- 82 -
they perform when they want to keep their mind busy, fill otherwise ‘dead
time’ or in cases where news consumption is a daily or weekly ritual.
While contextual findings were segmented in this paper for presentation
purposes, the interplay between the momentary needs that drove these
factors was just as important. For example, a situation where news
consumption was triggered by waiting for someone also included the
distracting element of expectation. Participants indicated that this had an
effect both on the type of news they consumed and on their level of
concentration and immersiveness.
Consumption ‘niches’
This needs-based approach is an essential part of the assumption that
users appropriate spaces for news consumption. In this appropriation
process, users essentially match a momentary need with the availability of
opportunity to realise that need, thereby creating their own unique news
consumption ‘places’, or ‘consumption niches’. Dimmick et al.

[31]
previously discussed the concept of ‘niches’ in terms of time and space
interstices in which users ‘fit’ their news consumption, such as with their
mobile devices while commuting, or on a desktop computer at work. By
focusing on aspects of time and space, Dimmick perhaps addresses
positivist
elements inherent in the approach to concept
[34]
, rather than
phenomenological
those of the one. Indeed, Dimmick concludes his paper
by defining it as a call for further exploration into the intertwining of
media consumption in mobile contexts and users’ daily lives.
- 83 -
The results of the current study add to Dimmick’s work by adding the
phenomenological layer of context to the theory of niches in news
consumption. The act of creating these ‘consumption niches’, and the
needs that drive it, point to news consumption being an opportunistic
opportunism
activity. The formal definition of the term carries a negative
meaning
[68]
. However, the author of this paper would argue in favour of
a part of that definition – “the taking of opportunities as and when they
arise, regardless of planning [...]”.
6.2. Methodologies and apparatus influence the effectiveness
of
in-situ
data collection
The author attempted to achieve several seemingly conflicting goals: use
multiple methods to maximise the amount of collected data and minimise
in-situ
inherent methodical biases, while lowering the data-entry burden.
Despite the supposed conflict between the number of methods used and
the level participation, compliance rates and participant statements
indicated the study was not demanding in terms of time or effort, therefore
in-situ
achieving the purpose of a low data entry burden. This proved to be
important to the relevance and breadth of collected data, seeing as data
collected in later stages substantiated and provided credence to previously
collected data, while adding new insights as well.
Custom-built applications vs. ‘off the shelf’ appropriation
Study findings show that using the appropriation of existing software
in-situ
platforms for the purpose of data collection is not without its
drawbacks and limitations. Issues with Wunderlist’s interface, user
onboarding and participant management were presented in this paper.
- 84 -
However, it is of note that these issues did not hinder the collection of data
nor did they dampen participation rates.
The ideal solution would be custom-built software applications, tailored to
the exact requirements of a specific study or even of a data collection
method as a whole, such as earlier ESM and diary study applications
[18,40]
. However, such endeavours are not always practical, as evident by
the lack of iteration on previously built applications. Therefore,
appropriation of commercially available applications that are maintained
and iterated on routinely offers a path for research that is both expeditious
and resource-efficient.
Design of
in-situ
methods is key to managing participation burden
As noted, participation rates and participant statements indicated a low
participation burden. While the cause for this was not explored directly as
part of the study, it is the author’s view that the question design and the
coordination of data collection between methods played a key role in
lowering participation burden.
Even though the study combined several different methods, each of them
was designed with questions that allowed participants to be as brief or
elaborated as they choose. Questions within each of the methods were
designed with the underlying assumption that any gaps in the data can be
completed by triangulating the data with other methods. This assumption
proved to be largely correct.
- 85 -
6.3. Directions for future research
Seeing as the current study was an exploratory one, the author aims for the
its findings to serve as starting point for future exploration of the
contextual factors outlined in this paper. First, the question of
measurability arises. While today’s sensing technology facilitates easy
measurements of movement, lighting and latitude-longitude coordinates,
elements such as user alertness, mood and distraction are not nearly as
easy to identify.
Second, and more importantly – just as GPS data is put to use within
context-aware computing applications, so should the factors detailed in
this paper. This will hopefully expand the definition of ‘context-aware’
computing, and realise the definition set out by Dourish

[32,34]
in
practice. For example, the affective state of an individual can be used to
determine whether they are receptive to content that is ‘hard news’, or
whether they will be more open to ‘soft news’, essentially expanding the
possibilities of previous adaptive content models such as the one proposed
by Billsus & Pazzani and Tavakolifard et al.

[10] [81]
. Just as importantly,
it can expand upon the work started by Constantinides et al.

[25]
by
adding to the range of factors by which adaptive interfaces match a user’s
habits, preferences and affective state. This will be of particular use, for
example, in the multitude of instances where contextual factors affected
the length of text that users would read.
Third, further refinement can be applied to the process of appropriating
commercially available applications for situated research. For example,
some scalability issues presented here may be alleviated by utilising the
- 86 -
Wunderlist API7 for participant, snippet and diary management, thereby
partially automating processes that were cumbersome in the current study.
6.4. Limitations
There were several limitations to the design and results of the current
study. First, some of the methods used carry the potential for certain
biases. Diaries, being a reflective and self-reported method, have the
potential for retrospective distortions

[89]
. Similarly, interviews are
subject to recall errors, seeing as they are retrospective conducted even
longer after participants’ actions have taken place. However, the use of
memory cues during interviews

[63]
and scheduling of the interviews as
in-situ
closely to the study as possible
[74]
were designed to alleviate this.
An additional memory-related limitation pertains to the subset of users
who, on several occasions, ‘aggregated’ snippets and diary questions and
answered them all at once. While not rendering the collected data
unusable by any means, this behaviour effectively negates the ‘real-time’
qualities of ESM and the value of snippets as memory cues, leaving the
data as a traditional diary study. Similarly, there were also occurrences of
participants responding to snippets, diary questions or both on the
following day after they were sent. Seeing as uncued memory lasts for
about one day

[74]
, this behaviour might introduce some additional
retrospective distortions, though supposedly not substantial ones.
Finally, while the sample of 17 participants for this study is relatively
standard for self-reporting studies such as diary studies and experience
7
Wunderlist API: https://developer.wunderlist.com/
- 87 -
sampling, it would be ideal to further explore and gauge the effectiveness
of the methodology presented in this paper, both for situated studies as a
whole, and for news consumption and media studies in particular.
- 88 -
Chapter 7. Conclusion
This study aimed to discover contextual factors that are of a qualitative
nature, and that are currently not addressed by ‘contextually-aware’
research and software frameworks. A situated approach

[80]
to the
examination of user actions was taken, and focus was placed on a
phenomenological definition to user context in-situ

. Several
[34] methods
were used, and a commercial task management and note-taking
application was appropriated to collect participant data, both designed to
lower participation burden. The study produced findings that indicated a
range of social, cultural and individual factors that drive the manner in
which users consume news, and contextual factors. Most notably, the
findings indicated that individuals often construct a context of use that is
partially or wholly independent of the space in which their interaction with
technology is taking place, reinforces earlier work by into the
appropriation of spaces
[46]
. Participation rates and participant
statements indicated a low participation burden, true to the the original
study design goal.
These results can be of use to the wider HCI community by serving as a
starting point for further research into the phenomenological aspects of
context, and enabling the development of news and media consumption
technologies that will address these contextual factors, such as previous
work into adaptive news interfaces

[25]
. Additionally, this research may
in-situ
herald further work into the design of methods that lower
participant data-entry burden, as well as the appropriation of ‘off the shelf’
in-situ
software applications for the purpose of research.
- 89 -
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Appendix 1: Participant Recruitment Advert
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Appendix 2: Study Sign-up Form
Created using Google Forms at the following URL:
http://bit.ly/UCLICnews
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- 98 -
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Appendix 3: Instruction Email
UCL Newsreading Study – thank you for

signingup.
Hello [participant name],
This email confirms your participation in our research study, which is carried out by
researchers at the UCL Interaction Centre in cooperation with the BBC. The study aims
to better understand how people read the news in a variety of daily life situations, using
digital devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones. We hope the insights from
this study will allow us to design smarter, friendlier, and easier to use newsreading
technologies in the future. All participants will receive £10 for completing the study,
and will have chance to win a £50 Amazon voucher*.
Please read the instructions below carefully, as they include important information
about taking part in the study.
We kindly ask that you confirm your participation
with a short reply to this email (see details at the end of this message).
When does the study take place?

The study will take place for two weeks starting Wednesday 22 July 2015, and
ending on Tuesday 4 August 2015 . We will provide a 5minute introductory chat via
Skype before starting the study, in which we will be happy to answer any questions
you might have (not mandatory).
Installing the Diary App (Wunderlist)

In order for us to receive your answers and feedback during the study, we ask that you
install the free 'Wunderlist' app on your smartphone. Wunderlist is an awardwinning
notetaking and task management app, which will be used to send you participation
reminders and answer daily questions. To download Wunderlist, tap the following link
from your smartphone, or search for Wunderlist on the App Store: Wunderlist for
iPhone
Important! When signingup for Wunderlist, please ensure that you use the same
email address entered when signing up for this study.
- 100 -
After you install and signup to Wunderlist, you will receive a request to join a list
called 'UCLIC News Study'. Please approve this request (this can be done within the
app or by clicking the link you receive from Wunderlist by email). Remember, a ll
information entered by you in the app is seen only by the researchers running this
study, will not be shared, and will be anonymised.
What will be required of you during the study?

During the study, we ask that you do the following every day:
● Capture snippets of information whenever you read the news on a digital

device (computer, tablet or smartphone) – snippets can be words, pictures or
anything else that reminds you of your experience and surroundings while
reading the news (such as ' tired on train bored in a queue
', ' ', '
video, at
work, can't watch ' or a picture of your surroundings, such as a busy street).
These can be added to the 'Snippets' task that we will send you everyday on
Wunderlist.
● Answer 45 questions every evening about your newsreading experience.
These questions should not take more than 5 minutes in total every day, and
are designed to be short and easy to complete. These will be answered in a
'Diary Questions' task that we will send you every day on Wunderlist.
At the end of the study's two week period, we will ask you to take part in a short
interview (2030 minutes), to better understand your experiences during the study. The
interview can take place inperson (a researcher will meet you at your convenience) or
online (via Skype).
We kindly ask that you confirm your participation in the study and your consent for
us to use the information collected during the study, according to the attached informed
consent form. To do so, please reply to this email with the words 'I AGREE'.
Questions & Support

For further information, or if you have any questions or technical difficulties during the
study, please do not hesitate to contact the project researcher at
yuval.cohen.14@ucl.ac.uk .
Please note: you are receiving this email because you signed up for our newsreading
study at
bit.ly/UCLICnews . You are free to withdraw from this study at any time,
however we kindly ask you to notify us in such an event at yuval.cohen.14@ucl.ac.uk ,
so we can find another participant in your place.
- 101 -
Terms and Conditions
This study has been approved by the UCL Interaction Centre Ethics Chair. Project ID
No: UCLIC/1415/013/Staff+MSc Marshall. By participating in this study you confirm
that you have read the participant information sheet as well as terms and conditions for
payment to participants and the Amazon voucher draw (attached to this email and
available at
http://bit.ly/NewsStudyInfo
), and that you have read and agreed to the
informed consent form attached to this email.
- 102 -
Appendix 4: Sample Exit Interview Schedule
● Thank you again for taking part in the study

● Just a reminder: the info from the study or this interview will not be shared
and will be stored anonymously.
● There is no right or wrong answer – feel free to answer in any way you
want, and even add something unrelated if you find it relevant.
● You can decline to answer any or all of the questions.
● You can stop the interview and even withdraw from the study at any time.
● Our research is aimed at understanding how a person’s environment and

surroundings affect the way they read, listen or watch the news (rather
than the content itself)
● Apologies ahead of time if the questions sound repetitive of earlier
questions.
General Questions
What is your age?
What is your occupation?
How do you commute?

(work, leisure)
How would you describe your level of comfort with technology?

(very
comfortable, comfortable, neutral, uncomfortable, or very uncomfortable?)
What is your level of interest in the news?
Which news do you typically follow?

(Looking for genres as well as and outlets)
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How would you characterize your news consumption – in terms of reading
vs. listening vs. watching?
Response-dependent Questions
You noted that you usually read the news first thing in the morning. Is there
a reason for this?
Are there specific times or places when you feel more comfortable to follow
the news? (it’s ok if there aren't)
You mentioned listening to the news while eating dinner or having lunch.
How do you find this experience vs. reading the news in the morning?
concentration, type of news,
(trigger, length of text)
You mentioned that you read a lot on the tube. How do you find this reading
experience compared to other reading experiences (e.g. home)?
(concentration, type of news,
length of text
)
Continuing Re the tube – you mentioned not having connectivity and also
not being able to read because of crowding. Can you elaborate about these
experiences?
You mentioned reading on the train over the weekend (Saturday Guardian,
no WiFi, relaxing). Can you elaborate about this? Specifically – compared
to your reading experience on a weekday?
- 104 -
You noted Facebook, email updates, and notifications on your phone as
(e.g. Guardian) as sources from which you find out about stories. How
much of your newsreading does this make up?
Are there any other sources that inform you about news? (e.g friends or
colleagues) If so – what is the trigger for these types of discussions?
You mentioned being very tired and not wanting to read the news. Is this
something that typically affects your newsreading?
Method and Wunderlist Questions
Were you familiar with the app before the study?
Did you experience any difficulties (technical or otherwise) while installing,

signing up for, or using the app? (you mentioned not remembering how to
add pictures)
Was the timing of the notifications convenient for you?
How demanding was it for you? (in terms of time and effort)
- 105 -
Did you feel that you had to answer notifications from the app immediately?
What made you answer a notification immediately vs. leaving it for later?
Were you aware that you could also use the app offline? (without 3G/4G or
Wifi)
Closing
Any additional thoughts or comments? Remember, there is no wrong

answer, and any comment is welcome.
● Thank very much you for participating. your responses will be very
valuable to our research.
● The winner of the £50 Amazon voucher will be announced in September.
● How would you like to receive payment for your participation?
- 106 -
Appendix 5: Participant Information Sheet
Exploring News Reading on Digital Devices

We would like to invite you to participate in our research project, which
explores how news is read on digital devices. Before you decide whether you
want to take part, please read the following information carefully and discuss it
with others if you wish. Ask us if there is anything that is not clear or you would
like more information.
About Our Research

Consumption of news stories is constantly shifting from the printed page to
digital devices. Once limited to a desktop computer screen, today’s readers
can read the news almost anytime, anywhere, in a variety of daily life
situations, thanks to a variety of mobile devices; Yet little research exists about
people’s news reading habits in these situations. The aim of our research is to
better understand the variety of situations in which people read the news, as
well as the effect that each of these situations has on their news reading
habits.
Your Participation
Why have I been invited?
We are looking for participants who fulfil the following criteria:

■ Are a UK resident.
■ Are aged 18 or over.
■ Read the news on a regular basis, using a digital device such as a
desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, or tablet.
■ Use an iPhone or an Android-based smartphone
Do I have to participate?
- 107 -
You should only participate if you want to. Choosing not to take part will not
disadvantage you in any way. Before you decide whether you want to take
part, please read this information sheet carefully and discuss it with others if
you wish. Ask us if there is anything that is not clear or if you would like more
information.
What will be required of me during the study?

Your participation in the study will consist of the following:
■ Answer a few questions every day, during a period of two weeks (5-10
mins/day max.)
■ Take part in a short interview (15-20 minutes) at the end of the study.
Additionally, you will be required to sign a consent form that allows us to

gather and analyse the results from the study. Even after agreeing to take part,
you can still withdraw at any time and without giving a reason.
Please note:
you do not need to be physically present in order to participate,
as all communication and data collection will be done digitally, using your
computer or smartphone.
Will I be rewarded for my participation?

Yes. Upon completion of the study, you will receive an amount of £10 for your
participation. You can receive this in cash, direct deposit, PayPal transfer, or
Google Wallet transfer. You will also be entered into a draw to win a £50
Amazon voucher*.
*
Voucher Drawing – Terms & Conditions
1. One Amazon Gift Voucher at the value of £50 will be given to the
participant whose project ID number will be randomly drawn.
2. There is no cash alternative to the prize.
3. The researcher reserves the right to substitute the prize for an
alternative of the same value.
4. In order to qualify for the prize, participants are expected to complete
all three parts of the study.
5. Participants have the right to withdraw from the study at any time,
however by withdrawing from the study participants forfeit their entry
into the draw.
- 108 -
6. The winner will be contacted via email no later than 14 September
2015.
7. The winner will be selected by members of the research team and staff
from University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC).
Will my participation be kept confidential?

Yes. The study is approved and supervised by the UCL Interaction Centre
ethics chair. Once we have your completed the study, your answers will be
made anonymous as they are entered into our database: anything that could
be used to identify you – your name, age, current city of residence or any other
such information – will be removed and replaced with a Project Number.
What will happen to the information collected during the study?

Your answers during the study will be used to gain insight about the topic of
news reading on digital devices. Details and results of this study may be
published in scientific journals and presented at international conferences.
However, no information that could identify you will ever appear in these
publications. We acknowledge your contribution as a whole of the participants
who are taking part – we cannot do this research without volunteer
participants and we are very grateful for your help!
Who is the contact person for this study?

If anything is unclear or if you have any further questions, please do not
hesitate to contact the project researcher at:
yuval.cohen.14@ucl.ac.uk
All data will be collected and stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act
1998.
- 109 -
Appendix 6: Informed Consent Form
Informed Consent Form for Participants in Research Studies
Title of Project:
Exploring news-reading on digital devices
This study has been approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee as
Project ID Number: UCLIC/1415/013/Staff+MSc Marshall
Participant’s Statement
I …………………………………………......................................
agree that I have
■ Read the information sheet and/or the project has been explained to
me orally;
■ Had the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the study; and
■ Received satisfactory answers to all my questions or have been
advised of an individual to contact for answers to pertinent questions
about the research and my rights as a participant and whom to contact
in the event of a research-related injury.
■ I understand that my participation will be taped/video recorded, and I
am aware of, and consent to, any use you intend to make of the
recordings after the end of the project.
■ I agree to be contacted in the future by UCL researchers who would
like to invite me to participate in follow-up studies.
■ I understand that the information I have submitted will be published as
a report and I will be sent a copy. Confidentiality and anonymity will be
maintained, and it will not be possible to identify me from any
publications.
I understand that I am free to withdraw from the study without penalty if I so

wish, and I consent to the processing of my personal information for the
purposes of this study only and that it will not be used for any other purpose. I
understand that such information will be treated as strictly confidential and
handled in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.
Signed: ………………………………… Date: …………………………………
- 110 -
Investigator’s Statement
I …………………………………………………………………….. confirm that I have

carefully explained the purpose of the study to the participant and outlined any
reasonably foreseeable risks or benefits (where applicable).
Signed: ………………………………… Date: …………………………………
- 111 -

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Places for news:

A situated study of context and research

methods in news consumption

Yuval Roy Cohen

Master of Science (Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics) in the

Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, 2015.

NOTE BY THE UNIVERSITY

This project report is submitted as an examination paper. No responsibility can

be held by London University for the accuracy or completeness of the material

First, I want to thank my supervisors: Paul Marshall, who thoughtfully

guided me through a project that seemed at first an insurmountable

challenge; Marios Constantinides, who provided me with key insight and

throughout the project, and helped me establish the conceptual foundation

for this research endeavour.

Second, I wish to express a deep gratitude to my family: to my parents and

this degree, and to my siblings, who encouraged me to cross oceans in

order to pursue my passions and interests. A special thanks to my mother,

as well as my Oma and Grandpa for agreeing to proofread my work.

encouragement throughout my work on this project.

News consumption is being fundamentally changed by the increased use of

mobile devices and social media platforms. ‘Contextually-aware’ news

applications use location and movement data to customise content.

However, they do not customise the interface through which news is

consumption and to determine their effect on user behaviour and

experience with technology. The formative phase of the study included a

three week autoethnography study and background interviews. In the

main phase, 17 participants reported their daily news consumption

activities through a snippet-based diary and experience sampling study,

which was followed by semi-structured exit interviews. Additionally, a

commercially available task management and note-taking software

application was appropriated for data collection. This combination of

methodology and apparatus was designed to maintain a low participant

part of the study.

in current ‘contextually-aware’ news delivery technologies, and could be

developed to better adapt such technologies in the future. These factors

were segmented to four areas: triggers, positive/conducive factors,

negative/distracting factors, barriers to use. Additionally, the methodology

participants, showing promise for future implementations of methods.

Goals and Research Questions 9

Chapter 2. Literature Review 11

2.1. Situated Studies 11

Situated Action Theory 11

Purpose of Situated Research 11

2.2. Context in HCI 13

Spaces and Places 15

2.3. News Consumption and Adaptive News Interfaces 16

Chapter 3. Methodology and Approaches 19

3.2. Situated Study Methods 20

The ‘Snippet’ Technique 22

Experience Sampling Method (ESM) 23

3.3. Semi-Structured Interviews 24

3.4. Custom-Built Tools & Appropriation 24

3.6. Data Analysis Approach 26

4.2. Background Interviews 28

4.3. Pilot Study 28

4.4. Main Study 29

4.5. Data Analysis 37

5.1. Methodology Evaluation 41

5.1.1. Participation Rates and In-Situ Burden 41

messaging platforms such as Whatsapp and Snapchat are becoming

and ultimately consumed by users

future directions for news content

interaction with technology is taking place

create a context independent of the space in which it is taking place

consumption in mobile contexts

solitude they create within those spaces

In recent years, HCI researchers have ventured into a variety of

present among participants in order to collect data

information needs, with computerised