News in their Pockets A Cross-City Comparative Study of Mobile News Consumption in Asia

Since the debut of the iPhone in 2007, the mobile phone has become a quick, convenient, and immensely popular gateway for accessing and consuming news. With three billion mobile phone subscribers, Asian countries have led this seismic shift in news consumption. They provide a wide range of opportunities to study how, as mobile technology matures and becomes routinized, mobile news is increasingly subject to societal constraints and impositions of political power that reduce the democratic benefits of such news and call into question the application of these technological innovations within governments and societies.

News in Their Pockets explores the societal, technological, and user-related factors behind why and how digital-savvy college students seek news via the mobile phone across Asia's most mobile cities--Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei. Situating cross-societal comparative analyses of mobile news consumption in Asia within a digital and global context, this volume outlines the evolution of the mobile phone to its prominence in disseminating news, offers predictors of patterns in mobile news consumption, investigates user needs and expectations, and illustrates future impacts on civic engagement from mobile news consumption. By examining the interplay between game-changing and empowering communication technology and constraining social systems, News in Their Pockets provides the framework necessary for constructive, continuing debates over the promise and peril of digital news and exposes our underlying reasoning behind the adoption of the mobile phone as the all-in-one media of choice to stay socialized, entertained, and informed in the modern digital age.

Ran Wei is Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, USA.

Ven-hwei Lo is Visiting Professor of Journalism in the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University and Editor of Communication and Society, a leading Chinese communication journal.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 News Gone Mobile

Chapter 2 Motivation, Perception, and Engagement

Chapter 3 Motivations: Beyond Access

Chapter 4 Consumption: Diverse and Rising

Chapter 5 Engagement: The New Dimension

Chapter 6 Perceptions: The Credibility Factor

Chapter 7 Who Learns from Mobile News?

Chapter 8 Modeling with Mediation Analysis

Chapter 9 Conclusions

Appendices

References

List of Subjects