There’s lots to wonder about as Internet news readership grows markedly. Which provider sites, for instance, do readers consider “news” sites? Are they sites mainstream news purveyors would consider traditional?
Will Internet news readers give up serendipity? If they narrow their sources, will they stop encountering stories they hadn’t intended to read? Will this cut down on their knowledge of the world?
Is it myth or fact that Internet news readers forego reading a broad spectrum in favor of personal-interest news only?
Web news providers gather statistics of what happens on their individual sites, but we wanted to learn how individuals behave across sites. What do they seek, what do they really read when they sit down at their computers and call up news? Do they read traditional suppliers of journalistic information, or mostly declaimers of opinions? Do they venture beyond narrow information sources?
The Stanford Poynter EyeTrack Study
