The Faster the Better?

Examining the Effect of Live-Blogging on Audience Reception

Angela M. Lee

Through an online experiment, this study examines the impact of live-blogging on

audiences perception of readability, selective scanning, news credibility, news use, and
paying intent (N=220). Contrary to industry expectation, this study found that the quest
for speed at the expense of errors (and subsequent corrections) has no effect on the
outcome variables, except news presented in the live-blogging format decreases
readability. In contrast, news interest predicts all outcome measures. Findings from this
study carry theoretical and practical implications for online news production and
consumption.

Key words: Live-blogging, Online Journalism, Experiment, Audience Reception

Citation: Lee, A. M. (In Press). The faster the better? Examining the effect of live-
blogging on audience reception. Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies.

Introduction
The newspaper industry is between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the
fight for the online news-reading publics time and attention is fiercer than before. On the
other hand, most news organizations continue suffering from economic hardship and
more newsrooms are laying off journalists. New media technology is altering many
aspects of mass communication processes. One of the most profound changes, especially
in the newspaper industry, lies in the growing emphasis on what is new or happening now
(Lee 2015; Lewis & Cushion 2009).
Speed is gaining traction as a new professional norm in the multi-media news
industry, though its effect on news has only begun to receive scholarly attention, and little
is known about its effect on news audiences. Through an online experiment, this study
examines the impact of live-blogging, a prominent and innovative news presentation style
often used during breaking news events, on news users in terms of readability, selective
scanning, news credibility, news use, paying intent. Findings from this study may offer
managerial advices to the news industry as more media companies experiment with live-
blogging in the quest to stay competitive in contemporary media landscape.

Speed, Journalism, and Live-Blogging

The drive for speed is deeply ingrained in journalism (Fisher 2014). After all,
what is news but information that is new to the public? Nevertheless, the rise of new
media technology, such as satellite and cable television, online news sites, and portals,
has heightened the news industrys obsession with speed in the contemporary media
environment (Lee 2015; Phillips 2012; Rosenberg & Feldman 2008; Salcito 2009).
The impact of this emphasis on speed is especially notable in the newspaper
industry. Being the primary vehicle of quality journalism, daily newspapers are
traditionally known for their employment of the largest reporting staff with most
emphasis on in-depth coverage of important events compared to other news media such
as radio and TV (Weaver, Beam, Brownlee, Voakes, & Wilhoit 2007). In a time when
most daily newspapers across the country continue to downsize their newsrooms (Guskin
2013), the prioritization of speed means print journalists are asked to do more with less
(Reinardy 2010).
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While being accurate remains the top priority for most news organizations
(Shapiro, Brin, Bdard-Brl, & Mychajlowycz 2013), there is an increasing commercial
incentive to be fast, or be the first, because it attracts more eyeballs and leads to more
online traffic, which in turn pleases advertisers and generates more online revenue (Lewis
& Cushion 2009; Nyhan 2013). It has also been argued that some journalists opt for
speed because there are minimal reputational and commercial penalties for errors in the
contemporary media landscape (Nyhan 2013).

Critics have raised concerns regarding the adverse effect this speed-driven, fast-
food, news diet has on the health of democracy (Silverman 2007). After all, the
prioritization of speed compels journalists to shift their priorities (Beaujon 2013; Lewis &
Cushion 2009; Reich & Godler 2014). For example, journalists publish more speculations
and less verified information or in-depth analysis when they are under pressure to publish
as quickly as possible (Lewis, Cushion, & Thomas 2005). As the pace intensifies, there is
heightened pressure among journalists to cut corners in order to meet growing
institutional demand with dwindling time and resources (Beaujon 2013; Salcito 2009). In
such situations, journalists rely on fewer sources and do less fact checking (Reich &
Godler 2014).
There also are benefits to the prioritization of speed in the newspaper industry,
however. For example, the ease of instant publication allows journalists to update and
correct misinformation more quickly. Rather than waiting for corrections to be included
in the next days newspaper, most newspaper organizations now update corrections
around the clock. Also, news can now reach the public instantaneously through multiple
channels (e.g., SNS and apps), which significantly widens its scope of reach.
Fast-paced journalistic practices that emerged with the rise of online journalism
include real-time fact-checking of political speeches, re-posting and/or aggregating
content from other media (often without independent verification), low-input, high-
readership listicles la Buzzfeed, content-farming (or churnalism) and live-blogging.
Live-blogging (also known as live blogs, rolling news, newsblogs, live news
pages, and live text) is a notable example of the marriage between traditional journalism
and the news industrys quest to publish news as quickly as possible, and it is now used
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by diverse mainstream media outlets around the world (e.g., AP and BBC). Live-
blogging differs from conventional news formats such as the inverted pyramid structure--
it emphasizes real-time updates as events unfold (Cushion, Aalberg, & Thomas 2014;
Thurman & Walters 2013).
Live-blogging is similar to live television news. Research shows that it is one of
the most engaging news presentation formats adopted by mainstream news media, and is
particularly popular among heavy Internet users (Thurman 2013). Typical features of live
blogs include multimedia elements, time-stamped micro updates, transparent and time-
stamped corrections, publication by chronology, and incorporation of content from
microblogging sites such as Twitter (Thurman & Walters 2013). Some news
organizations create their own live-blogging platforms (e.g., BBC), and others adopt
platforms such as Storify and Live Blog (e.g., German Press Agency). Research finds that
journalists often embrace live-blogging because of accessibility, diversity in sources,
novelty in presentation style, and transparency in sourcing (Baume 2011; Sacco & Bossio
2014).

Effects of Live-Blogging on Audience Reception

To test the economic viability of live-blogging as an innovative online news
presentation style that prioritizes speed, this study seeks to shed light on how live-
blogging affects different ways in which users think about, use, and decide to pay for
online news presented in the live-blog format. Drawing on a theoretical model of online
news consumption (Chyi & Lee 2013), unless news users favor live-blogging and
actually consume it, they are not going to pay for it. Similarly, drawing on the uses and
gratifications paradigm, which posits that people are more likely to repeatedly use a
medium if their specific needs are fulfilled (Krcmar & Strizhakova 2009; Lee 2013;
Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rosengren 1985), this studys attempt to understand how news
users perceive and engage with live-blogging may pave way for future research on live-
bloggings role in online journalism. For these reasons, this study examines the effects of
live-blogging on readability, selective scanning, credibility, use, and paying intent.
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Readability
The experiment examines readability of content presented in the live-blogging
format from the users perspective. Readability refers to the ease of following or
understanding something that one is reading (Baker 2010). Readability studies have been
conducted across different media over the years, ranging from traditional paper medium
(Tinker 1965) to e-readers (Baker 2010), and scholars have focused on different aspects
of readability, including vocabulary and grammatical structures (Chall & Dale 1995) and
line length (Dyson & Haselgrove 2001).
Traditionally, online content has often been deemed less readable when compared
to print equivalents (Nielsen 1998), but this is largely due to poor portability or the
inability to underline or make notes in the margins of online content (OHara & Sellen
1997). However, the creation of tablets and high-resolution displays technology in recent
years has significantly improved the portability and clarity of reading devices (Kuhn
2002).
In its infancy, live-blogging has received scant empirical attention (Thurman &
Walters 2013). As such, little is known about whether this new form of news presentation
affects readability of news content. Whereas most print and online news articles have
traditionally been published in the classic inverted pyramid style, live blogs stories
deviate from such template and prioritize chronology instead. Given its growing
popularity, news presented in this format necessitates empirical assessment on
readability. As such, the following research question is proposed:
RQ1: In terms of readability, how does news presented in the live blog format
compare to those written in the inverted pyramid style?

Selective Scanning
The amount of free news content available online has increased dramatically over
the years. In order to keep up with available information on the Internet and avoid
information overload, many people engage in selective scanning, which refers to
audiences picking and choosing among a wide array of information available for
consumption. Selective scanning includes headline and article skimming or skipping, and
is akin to page flipping in the analog era (Eveland & Dunwoody 2002; Savolainen
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2015; Trilling & Schoenbach 2013). In general, people selectively scan content for bits
and pieces of information that they think are interesting or relevant (Astleitner & Leutner
1995; Eveland & Dunwoody 2001; Kosicki & McLeod 1990; Liu 2005).
Research finds selective scanning is more prevalent among Web than print users
(Eveland & Dunwoody 2002; Liu 2005), and that it is harmful to learning (Eveland,
Cortese, Park, & Dunwoody 2004). Studies have measured selective scanning by asking
participants about skimming and reading portions of stories, and most of these studies
focus on the effect of hypermedia, such as the use of hyperlinks, on selective scanning
(Eveland et al., 2004; Eveland & Dunwoody 2002).
Its possible that news users are more likely to selectively scan news presented in
the live blog format because it comprises mostly of time-stamped updates presented in
chronological order. However, they may also be less likely to selective scan news
presented in such format because it deviates from the traditional inverted pyramid style
that most news users are accustomed to both off and online, which may arguably be more
cognitively taxing for the users. In the attempt to shed light on this puzzle, the following
research question is proposed:

RQ2: Is selective scanning more or less likely to occur among those who read the
news presented in the live blog format?

News Credibility
News credibility, or media credibility, is the publics perception of a news
organizations believability and trustworthiness (Appelman & Sundar 2016; Bucy 2003),
and it is a particularly crucial concept to study in journalism because it promotes news
consumption. Given its theoretical richness, it has been measured differently across a
number of credibility studies. In essence, news credibility is about message credibility,
and an updated synthesis of message credibility research finds that this concept comprises
accuracy, authenticity, and believability at its core (Appelman & Sundar 2016). American
publics perception of press accuracy has worsened over the years, which could be due in
part to journalists increasing need to produce speedy updates or constant publications
(Pew Research Center for The People and the Press 2009).
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While speed may not directly cause inaccurate reporting, errors and subsequent
corrections are more likely to occur when one is under time pressure (Kroll 2013) or
when news organizations adopt the report first, confirm second and correct third
approach in the quest for speedy publication (Farhi 2013, para. 13). Correction is a
natural part of news that is produced under time pressure, such as those presented in the
live-blog format. Research on the impact of corrections on news credibility is emerging
and inconclusive. Whereas some found that corrections boost credibility (Nemeth &
Sanders 2009), others find that it has a backfire effect (Nyhan & Reifler 2010). Also,
whereas some find that corrections do not affect user perception (Karlsson, Clerwall, &
Nord 2014), others find that the effect depends on the type of corrections (Appelman &
Hettinga 2015).
Nevertheless, due to the inherent tradeoff between speed and accuracy, most
peoples general negative attitudes toward sacrificing news accuracy at the expense of
speed (Karlsson, Clerwall, & Nord 2016), and the negative association between
journalistic errors and news credibility (Maier 2005; Porlezza, Maier, & Russ-Mohl
2012), this study proposes the following hypothesis:

H1: Those who read the news presented in the live blog format will perceive the
news to be significantly less credible than those who read it presented in the
traditional inverted pyramid style.

News Use and Future Use

Dwindling audience has been a problem shared by most news organizations for
more than a decade (Kohut 2013), and the newspaper industry has been especially
affected by the loss of newspaper readers, with more people spending less time
consuming news and fewer people reading the newspaper overall (The Pew Research
Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism 2013).
From news organizations perspective, news use is important because its not only
a way for them to measure the impact and reach of their content, but also its aggregate
data, such as circulation or online traffic numbers, is often used by news organizations to
negotiate business deals with advertisers. Focusing on future news use, which refers to
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the likelihood that audiences would consider consuming similar news stories in the
future, this study examines the extent to which live-blogging heightens news users
intention for future consumption.
One of the reasons that the news industry is becoming increasingly obsessed with
speed is that it believes speedy updates would fulfill news audiences growing desire for
instant gratification (Alsop 2011), although the professional literature offers scant
empirical evidence supporting this widespread assumption (Lee 2015). Assuming that the
industry is right about news audiences growing need for speedy updates, it is reasonable
to assume that live-blogging will translate into a higher propensity for future use. For
these reasons, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H2: Those who read the news presented in the live blog format will have
significantly more inclination to read similar stories than those who read the news
presented in the traditional inverted pyramid style.

Paying Intent

The rise of online news media has allowed newspapers new ways to engage news
audiences, although most daily newspapers continue to struggle with finding new ways to
help offset shrinking revenues in their print products (Chyi, Lee, & Holton 2016).
Although most news professionals assume that audiences expect speedy news updates
(Alsop 2011; Lee 2015; Rosenberg & Feldman 2008), the extent to which news practices
that prioritize speed translates into more revenue opportunities has yet to be examined,
and this study seeks to fill that empirical gap.
In general, charging for online content is difficult research suggests that the
public has weak paying intent for online news regardless of the payment model (Bleyen
& Hove 2007; Chyi 2012). There are newspapers that succeed in charging for online
content (e.g., The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times), but such successes are
clearly the exception rather than the norm (Herbert & Thurman 2007). A report by the
Pew Research Center finds that of 1,380 dailies in the U.S., 450, or about 33%, have
adopted some form of digital paywall (The Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence
in Journalism 2013).
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In a market with fierce competition, theory of monopolistic competition posits

that the key to success is product differentiation (Chamberlin 1950). For news
organizations, this means they must aim for content differentiation in todays hyper-
competitive media environment (Chyi & Sylvie 1998). While speed contributes to
content differentiation (e.g., news that is published now versus much later), the problem
is that most, if not all, news organizations today compete online by offering speedy
updates, and the market for real-time updates is, arguably, already beyond the saturation
point. The Web offers countless alternative venues for people to get fast updates for free,
ranging from social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to blogs and portals. On
the other hand, its possible that live-blogging may lead to heightened paying intent if it
satisfies news audiences demand for instant updates. The following question is asked:

RQ3: Compared to news presented in the traditional inverted pyramid style, does
news presented in the live blog format increase or decrease news users' paying
intent?

Methodological Design
This study used a single factor between-subject experimental design with two
levels of the factor live blog vs. control (traditional inverted pyramid style), and the
purpose is to examine the perceived effect of live-blogging on audience reception.
News presented in the traditional inverted pyramid style is used as the control
condition because this is how typical news stories are presented in the real world.

Participants
This experiment recruited its subjects from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk).
MTurk is a crowd-sourcing platform that offers affordable access to on-demand
workforce for tasks such as survey taking or experimental participation. Advantages of
MTurk includes: affordability, easy to use for recruitment, and it allows for completely
voluntary participation (Jacquet 2011). Two hundred and twenty adults (18+) residing in
the U.S. were recruited for the study, and they were randomly assigned to one of the two
conditions, with 110 participants in each group.
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Independent Variable
The independent variable in the experiment is operationalized at two levels: live-
blogging versus the control. In the live-blogging condition, all of the events were
published (1) in short sentences, (2) in reverse-chronological order (with fresh content at
the top), and (3) updated with clearly visible timestamps so as to mimic the urgency of
real-time publication during breaking news events. Timeliness, or speed, is a central
characteristic of live blogs (Thurman & Walters 2013). In contrast, news presented in the
control condition adopts the classic inverted pyramid style, with the most important
information (e.g., who, what, where, when, and why?) on the first paragraph and other
information in the last paragraph.

Experimental Conditions
News stories used in both conditions were identical except for presentation style.
A few corrections were included in this condition to mimic typical live blogs way of
correcting for mistakes. The four stories used in the experiment two weather and two
crime storieswere adopted from publications such as The New York Times, except all
factual information, such as location and names, were changed for the purpose of the
study (See Appendix A).

Manipulation Check
A manipulation check is embedded in the experiment to ascertain whether speed
is perceived differently in both conditions. The following question is used for the
manipulation check: From your perspective, how fast was this news story published? (1
being not at all and 7 very). Independent sample t-tests revealed that the
manipulation is successful across all the stories (See Table 1). In other words, those in the
live-blogging condition thought the news story was produced at a significantly faster pace
than those in the control condition.

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Manipulation Test Revealed that All Stories Presented in the Live-Blogging Format Are
Perceived as Having Been Produced at a Faster Pace

Experimental Conditions
Control Live-Blogging Independent
M (SD) M (SD) Sample T-Test
Story 1 4.76 5.32 t (204) = 3.00**
(1.20) (1.50)
Story 2 4.60 5.46 t (204) = 4.83***
(1.22) (1.36)
Story 3 4.84 5.47 t (203) = 3.56***
(1.16) (1.39)
Story 4 4.66 5.57 t (203) = 5.22***
(1.14) (1.34)
Table 1. Note: N = 220. *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001. M=mean, SD = square root of
variance, range = 1-7.

Dependent Variables

Consistent with previous research (Baker 2010), readability is measured by the

following question: (1) From your perspective, how easy was this story to follow? (One
being not at all and seven very)
Extending existing research (Eveland et al. 2004; Eveland & Dunwoody 2002),
selective scanning is measured with the following item: How much of this news story
did you read? This variable is measured on a 7-point Likert scale, with one
approximating a few sentences, four about half, and seven the entire article.
Adopting from previous study (Chung, Nam, & Stefanone 2012), credibility is
measured as an index comprising the following two questions: (1) From your
perspective, how credible did you find this news story? (2) From your perspective, how
believable did you find this story? (one being not at all and seven very).
To measure future use, the following question is asked: From your perspective,
how likely are you to read other stories like this one? (one being not at all and seven
very).
Adopting from previous study (Chyi & Lee 2013), paying intent is measured by
the following question: From your perspective, how likely are you to pay for this news
story if it were behind a paywall? (one being not at all and seven very).
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Those in the live-blogging condition were asked how they read the articles for
follow-up analysis, though this variable is not included in the statistical analysis. Instead,
it is elaborated on in the Discussion section. Article navigation is measured by the
following question, did you read this story top-down (i.e., from the latest update to the
first update) or bottom-up (i.e., from the first update to the latest update)?

Covariates
Covariates are variables not controlled for in the experiment that may affect the
dependent variables, and their inclusion as control variables in MANCOVA minimizes
the effects of random noise on statistical analysis. The following three variables are
associated with key dependent variables in the model, and thus included as controls in the
analysis: (1) News interest is measured by the following question: How interesting did
you find this news story? (one being not at all and seven very). (2) General news use:
How often do you read the news in general? (one being never and seven all the time).
(3) News payment: Are you currently paying for any news online (i.e., pay-per-article,
online subscription or print/digital bundle)? (one = yes, two = no).

Demographic Variables
For descriptive purposes, standard demographic variables are collected at the end
of the experiment, including gender, age, race, and education.

Procedure
The subjects were invited to participate in the study on MTurk, and subjects were
then randomly assigned to either the live-blogging or control group. All of the subjects
read the same four news stories. The order in which the four stories appeared is
randomized by Qualtrics, an online survey company that allows users to distribute
questionnaires and collect survey data. After each story, the subjects were asked to
answer questions on readability, selective scanning, news credibility, future use, and
paying intent. Demographic and general news use information was collected at the end of
the survey.
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Statistical Analysis
The four news stories were summed to create indices for all outcome variables, all
of which have Cronbachs alphas between.83 and .90, meeting conventional standard for
good indices. Maximum reliability of a Cronbachs alpha test is 1.0. Given the design of
this experiment, with continuous dependent variables, a nominal independent variable
(live-blogging vs. control), and three continuous covariates, all of the analyses were done
using Multivariate Analysis of Covariates (MANCOVA).
Results
The between-subject experiment was conducted with 220 U.S. residents on
Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Descriptives
The majority of the subjects (78.2%) are between ages 18-34, 17.5% of the
subjects are between ages 35-54, and 4.4% of the subjects are 55 or older. About 75% of
the subjects are men, which is noticeably higher than the national average (50.2%)
(United States Census Bureau, 2016). Of all the subjects, 69.6% are White, followed by
13.7% Asian, 7.4% African American, and 9.2% Other. Over half (53.9%) of the
subjects do not have a college degree, 33.5% of the subjects have a college degree, and
12.6% of the subjects have an advanced degree (e.g., M.A., J.D., or Ph.D.). About 10% of
the subjects have ever paid for access to news online, and only 5.3% of the subjects are
currently paying for the news online. Of the 5.3% who are current paying for the news
online, 54.5% pay through a print/digital bundle, and the rest pay for digital-only (N =5).
In terms of media usage, the subjects typically consume most breaking news (when
breaking news events occur) (M = 5.18; SD = 1.43; range = one to seven), followed by
general news (M = 4.85 SD = 1.44; range = one to seven), weather news (M = 4.38; SD =
1.78; range = one to seven) and crime news (M = 3.87; SD = 1.59; range = one to seven).

MANCOVA Findings

Given the purpose of this study is to assess the overall effect of live-blogging on
news users across different news stories, five dependent variables (readability, selective
scanning, news credibility, future use, and paying intent) and three covariates (news
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interest, general news use and news payment) were entered together in a MANCOVA
that examined the four stories as a whole.1 MANCOVA corrects for chance findings of
significance when multiple tests are performed, protecting the analysis against inflated
Type 1 error rates. Also, multivariate tests take into account correlations among a group
of dependent variables, which makes it more powerful for detecting group differences. A
significant effect was found for the manipulation, Wilks Lambda =.22, F(5, 187) =
10.51, p<.001. Wilks Lambda is a commonly used multivariate test, and a statistically
significant Wilks Lambda indicates that the outcome variables as a group differ by the
independent variable.
To summarize, live-blogging negatively affect readability (RQ1), F(1, 194) =
45.22, p <.001, p2 = .19, but has no discernable effect on selective scanning (RQ2),
perceived credibility, (H1), future news use (H2), and paying intent (RQ3). On the other
hand, the extent to which the subjects find a news story interesting significantly predicts
all five dependent variables.

MANCOVA Revealed that Live-Blogging Negatively Affects Readability But Has No

Effect on Other Outcome Variables

Experimental Groups
Live-Blogging Control

M SD N M SD N
Dependent Variables
News Credibility 39.73 9.31 98 42.03 7.67 103
Future Use 15.97 6.44 98 17.40 5.05 107
Paying Intent 8.23 5.63 99 8.07 5.08 107
Readability 17.42* 6.82 98 22.89* 3.40 107
Selective Scanning 26.26 3.27 98 27.03 2.15 107

1 MANCOVA was also performed for each news story, with Bonferroni correction to counteract the
problem of multiple comparisons. All of the analyses at the individual news stories level are qualitatively
the same as what is presented below, except those who read the news in traditional inverted pyramid style
(M = 6.79, SD = .49) read significantly more of the flooding story (e.g., less selective scanning) than those
who read it in the live blog format (M = 6.48, SD = 1.22). Nonetheless, given 20 pairs of contrasts were
examined in this fashionwith four news stories and five dependent variableshaving one pair of
significant contrast is not unexpected from a statistical standpoint.
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Table 2. Note: N = 220. *p<.001.

Discussion

Contrary to industry expectation, the experiment revealed that live-blogging has

no discernable effect on audience reception in general. Specifically, news users exposure
to news content that prioritizes speed at the expense of accuracythose that adopt the
report first, confirm second, and correct third approach (Farhi 2013)has no impact on
selective scanning, news credibility, news use, and paying intent. Instead of speed, news
interestthe extent to which the subjects find a news story interestingturns out to be
the one consistent variable predicting readability, selective scanning, news credibility,
news use, and paying intent in univaraite analyses, accounting for as many as over half
(53%) of the variance in future use.
In terms of professional contribution, this suggests that print journalists may set
aside their concerns about speed deteriorating news credibility and focus instead on
exploring new ways to improve journalism through the adoption of speed-driven
practices. Nonetheless, it should be noted that experimental findings are limited in their
generalizability, hence future studies should examine whether the same trend is observed
across different news topics and sample. Additionally, future studies are encouraged to
examine whether live-blogging has different effects on longer stories that may comprise
more updates and more errors. Moreover, it should be acknowledged that live-blogging
represent only one type of news presentation that prioritizes speed. Furthermore, future
studies should explore whether reading speedy content in real-time contributes to
different effects on audience reception.
Compared to those who read the news in the inverted pyramid style, the
experiment revealed that those who read the news in the live blog format considered the
content to be significantly harder to follow. Also, when asked whether they read the news
stories from top-down or bottom-up during post-hoc analysis, a majority of the
participants (between 64% and 72% across the four stories) who read the news in the live
blog format indicated that they read the content from bottom-upthat is, from the oldest
to the newest updates. This consumption behavior is inconsistent with how English news
is generally consumed, and may explain why subjects in the fast group found the news
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harder to follow even though both groups read news stories of identical content in the
experiment. As such, newspapers may explore offering an option that allows readers to
choose whether they want to read live blog updates with fresher content at the top or
bottom of the page.
Large sample sizes generally help minimize the chance of Type II errors, which is
a false negative (e.g., when the researcher erroneously fails to reject the null hypothesis).
Following conventional standards, with alpha set to .05 and Power .80, this study
(N=220) is able to detect a medium-to-large effect size (Cohens d = .34). The fact that
all of the MANCOVAs conducted in this study were non-significant, except for
readability, suggests that the effect of speed on the observed dependent variables in this
study must be small, if it were to exist at all.
To minimize subject fatigue and cognitive overload, given this study required that
the participants read four news stories and answer a series of audience reception
questions following each news story, this study adopted several single-item measures
from previous studies to assess the effect of speed on a number of outcome variables.
Future studies are encouraged to replicate this study by testing fewer variables with more
sophisticated measures. For example, future studies may consider using the Flesch
Reading Ease Score to assess readability and employ an even more elaborate set of
measures to examine news credibility.

Conclusion

As primary central gatekeepers and agenda-setters in todays media environment,

journalists impact society not only through what they produce (e.g., news topics), but also
how they produce the news (e.g., investigative or breaking news reporting). With the
news industrys quest for speed, findings from this study carry notable theoretical and
managerial implications. Advancing empirical research on audience reception, this study
suggests that audiences evaluation of, use, and intention to pay for, the news is
predominately driven by content suitabilitythe extent to which a news story interests
the consumer, rather than technological affordabilitythe degree to which a news story
adopts the synchronistic nature of digital technology. Such findings are at odds with the
news industrys technology-driven approach and calls for the adoption of content-driven
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strategies. After all, only news that is considered trustworthy, consumed, and likely to be
paid for by the audiences is beneficial to society and news organizations.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Renita Coleman and Xiaoxia Cao for their advice on this
study.


List of Tables

Table 1. Manipulation test revealed that all stories presented in the live-blogging format
are perceived as having been produced at a faster pace

Table 2. MANCOVA Revealed that live-blogging negatively affects readability but has
no effect on other outcome variables

Notes on Contributor

Angela M. Lee, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the School of Arts, Technology, and
Emerging Communication at The University of Texas at Dallas. She has published over
twenty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on audience analysis, media
management, behavior prediction, and journalism ethics. She has received a number of
highly selective awards, including Top Faculty Paper Award and the News Audience
Research Paper Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication. Her work has also garnered mainstream attention from outlets such as
The New York Times and the Nieman Journalism Lab of Harvard University.

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Appendix A

Control Condition: Traditional Inverted Pyramid

Suspect Sought in Los Angeles Bank Robbery
By RICHARD MUSKAL

Los Angeles police and the FBI are searching for a man suspected of robbing
a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Culver City.

The bank, in the 10011 block of Washington Blvd., was robbed around 11:15
a.m. Monday.

Investigators say the suspect walked inside and displayed a paper bag,
claiming to have an explosive and demanding money.

After receiving an undisclosed amount of cash, the suspect fled on foot. The
paper bag was left at the scene and no explosive was found.

The suspect is described as a white male in his late 30s to early 40s,
approximately 6 feet 2 inches tall, about 240 pounds, with a pale complexion
and a full beard. He was last seen wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, black
vest, and dark-colored winter cap.

Authorities say he is considered armed and dangerous.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI at 310-417-4091 or the
Los Angeles Police at 310-417-TIPS (8477). Tips can remain anonymous.

Experimental Condition: Live Blog

Suspect Sought in Los Angeles Bank Robbery
By RICHARD MUSKAL

11:48 a.m.: Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI at 310-417-
4091 or the Los Angeles Police at 310-417-TIPS (8477). Tips can remain
anonymous.

11:44a.m.: Authorities say he is considered armed and dangerous.

11:41 a.m.: CorrectionThe suspect was last seen wearing a black hooded
sweatshirt and blue vest.

11:35 a.m.: The suspect is described as a white male in his late 30s to early
40s, approximately 6'2" tall, 230-250 pounds, with a pale complexion and a
 25

full beard. He was last seen wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, black vest, and
dark-colored winter cap.

11:26 a.m.: CorrectionNo explosives was found.

11:21 a.m.: After receiving an undisclosed amount of cash, the suspect fled
on foot. The paper bag was left at the scene and explosives were found in the
paper bag.

11:20 a.m.: Investigators say the suspect walked inside and displayed a
paper bag, claiming to have an explosive and demanding money.

11:17 a.m.: The bank, in the 10011 block of Washington Blvd., was robbed
around 11:15 a.m. Monday.

11:14 a.m.: Los Angeles police and the FBI are searching for a man suspected
of robbing a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Culver City.