The 360° News Experience: Audience Connections with the Ubiquitous News Organization

In: Journalism & mass communication quarterly: JMCQ, Volume 85, Issue 1, p. 7-22

Abstract

The current research extends propositions from uses and gratifications, the technology acceptance model, and the expectancy-value perspective and attempts to explain audience connections to the 360° or multimodal content provider (news organization). The findings suggest a strong connection between surveillance gratifications and ritualistic media use on attitudes or perceptual orientations toward the news organization; this in turn mediates and best predicts satisfaction with the 360° news experience. The overall findings also suggest a branding effect or an extension of the audience's television news perceptions to the multimodal content provided by the news organization.