Media Use: United States

ANGELA M. LEE
University of Texas at Dallas, USA

In the media effects tradition, the focus on media use grew out of the limited effects
eradriven by the belief that the ways in which mass media influence users can only
be fully understood after taking into consideration how and why media are used in the
first place. For example, by centering on media use, the uses and gratifications paradigm
examines why and how people use different media to fulfill different needs (Lee, 2013).
This entry offers an overview of how Americans use various digital, mass, and social
media, drawing on recent large-scale reports from reputable sources such as the Pew
Research Center, the American Press Institute, the US National Newspaper Association,
Nielsen, comScore, and the Motion Picture Association of America, and it also discusses
key problems with mainstream reports on media use.

Digital devices and social media

In the United States, penetration of digital technology continues to rise. In 2013,

American adults time spent with digital media (i.e., online or mobile) surpassed
that of television for the first time, and the gap between time spent on each medium
continued to widen in 2014. Americans now own four digital devices on average,
spending roughly 60 hours a week consuming content across different devices (Nielsen,
2014). As of 2014, 82% of US households owned laptop computers and had flat panel
televisions at home, and 71% owned smartphones. Among teens, three fourths reported
having access to smartphones, 30% had basic phones, and 12% of those between the
ages of 13 and 17 did not have cellphones (Lenhart, 2015). African American teens are
more likely to have smartphones (85%) compared to white and Hispanic teens (71%).
The widespread availability of smartphones contributes to American teens heavy
online activities. A majority of American teens (92%) reported going online daily,
and about one fourth (24%) almost constantly. More African American (34%) and
Hispanic (32%) teens reported going online almost constantly than white teens (19%;
Lenhart, 2015).
In terms of social media activities, nearly half (47%) of all smartphone users said they
used social media every day, and about two thirds (64%) visited social media sites at
least once a day via their computers (Nielsen, 2014). Among US adult (18+) users, Face-
book was the most frequented app (115 million unique visitors per month), followed by
YouTube (83 million), Google Play (72 million), and Google Search (70 million; com-
Score, 2014). Facebook was also the most popular social networking site in terms of

The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects.

Patrick Rssler (Editor-in-Chief), Cynthia A. Hoffner, and Liesbet van Zoonen (Associate Editors).
2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118783764.wbieme0001
2 ME D I A US E: UN I T E D STAT E S

mobile time spent and overall use; while its user base growth has slowed since 2013,
possibly due to a ceiling effect, its users level of engagement with the site increased in
2014 (70% of its users reported visiting the site every day in 2014, compared to 63%
in 2013; Duggan et al., 2015). Overall, these data do not suggest that Facebook will be
dying anytime soonafter all, many Americans, both young and old, still use it actively
and frequently on the Web and mobile.
Those who are younger frequent more social networking sites. Whereas over half
(52%) of online users reported frequenting more than one social networking site, 71%
of teens reported doing so. Among teens aged 1317, leading social media platforms in
terms of use included Facebook (71%), Instagram (52%), and Snapchat (41%; Lenhart,
2015).
With Facebook and Snapchats effort since 2015 to move into the news business, it is
expected that social media will play an increasingly important role in how Americans,
particularly younger generations, consume news in the future.

Movies and television

A majority of Americans (68%) went to the movies at least once in 2014. They also
purchased, on average, 5.5 tickets in 2014, which is down from 5.9 tickets in 2013.
Those between ages 25 and 39 were the most frequent moviegoers in 2014 (7.1 million),
followed by those between ages 18 and 24 (7.0 million), and Caucasians are dispropor-
tionally more likely to go to the movies than others (Motion Picture Association of
America, 2015). The top five movies in the US and Canadian box offices in 2014 were
Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, Captain America: The
Winter Soldier, The Lego Movie, and Transformers: Age of Extinction; all except for The
Hunger Games were also offered in 3D. Individuals aged between 2 and 17 were more
likely to watch 3D movies than individuals aged over 18. On average, 3D moviegoers
watched about one such film in 2014.
Among those who watched movies at home, more watched them on a television
(67%) than a desktop or laptop (24%). However, younger millennials (aged 1425) spent
about as much time watching movies on a television (43%) as they did on a desktop or
laptop (40%). The same trend was observed regarding consumption of TV shows. On
average, 68% of Americans watched TV shows on a television compared to 23% on a
desktop or laptop, whereas 43% of younger millennials watched TV shows on television,
compared to 41% on a desktop or laptop. Among TV subscribers, most watched about
11 channels on average (Deloitte, 2015). For movie and TV consumption, Americans
rarely used smartphones (4% for both) or tablets (5% for both).
In 2013, about 40% of US consumers streamed videos via Netflix. Among Netflix
users, the computer was the primary consumption device (44%), followed by smart-
phones (23%) and smart televisions (17%); the same pattern was true for Hulu Plus
users. Most Netflix users (44%) reported watching an equal number of movies and TV
shows on Netflix, whereas 34% reported watching more movies on Netflix and 22%
reported watching more TV shows on Netflix (Nielsen, 2014).
 ME D I A US E: UN I T E D STAT E S 3

Books

There is growing evidence that a majority of Americans still prefer print for pleasure and
learning, and this remains true for millennials who grew up in the digital age. While
percentage change in ebook usage and circulation continues to rise, the rate of such
increase is declining. Many college students prefer textbooks in print for readability
reasonssome find that digital screens are distracting and contribute to skimming,
whereas print allows them to read more carefully so the materials sink in better. In
2014 a report found that the number of US public libraries that said their members
prefer print is at an all-time high, even though more books are becoming available in
ebook format (Library Journal, 2014).

Magazines

The magazine industry enjoyed audience growth between 2012 and 2015, and the num-
ber of print magazine brands in the United States rose from 7,188 in 2013 to 7,240 in
2013 and 7,289 in 2014. The print medium is still in high demand: In 2015, most maga-
zine readers (91%) reported having read print magazines in the past 6 months, and the
number was even higher among younger readers (94% among those aged under 35 and
95% among those aged under 25). Digital editions of magazines have also gained read-
ership, but in 2015 the number of print readers (or printdigital hybrids) significantly
outweighed that of digital-only readers (Association of Magazine Media, 2015).
In terms of single-copy sales, Vanity Fair sold the most copies in 2014 (207,921
copies), followed by Rolling Stone (79,642 copies) and Time (60,145 copies). However,
when it comes to subscriptions, Time tops the list (over 3 million subscribers), followed
by Rolling Stone (about 1.4 million subscribers) and The New Yorker (about 1 million
subscribers). Compared to print circulations, most magazines online performance is
weaker. For example, during 2014, Vanity Fair sold 17,530 single copies online and
had 62,746 online subscribers; Rolling Stone sold 23,506 copies and had 28,913 online
subscribers; Time sold 16,001 single copies online and had 49,191 online subscribers;
and The New Yorker sold 9,956 single copies online and had 80,153 online subscribers.
In looking at online traffic alone, Forbes.com is the most popular news magazine,
having over 36 million unique visitors in January 2015, followed by Time.com (over
22 million) and RollingStone.com (over 13 million; Matsa & Shearer, 2015).

Radio and music

Overall, Americans remain dedicated to terrestrial radio, which may have something to
do with the fact that many of them commute to work by car. In 2014 a report found that
44% of all radio consumption was done in the car, compared to 29% at home and 15% at
work (McDuling, 2014). Aside from having high penetration rate, terrestrial radio also
has the highest number of listening hours compared to satellite or Internet services.
4 ME D I A US E: UN I T E D STAT E S

The proportion of Americans over age 12 who listened to radio weekly declined
from 96% in 2001 to 91% in 2013, although a 5% decrease over the span of a decade is
not especially significant considering the plethora of alternative choices that emerged
during this period (e.g., MP3, streaming music services, and satellite radio). In fact, it
suggests that Americans terrestrial radio consumption is relatively inelastic. Nonethe-
less, should commuting be a key factor in most Americans terrestrial radio consump-
tion, the future of this medium may be in peril: A 2014 report indicated that, whereas
only about 50% of the cars sold in 2015 were Internet enabled, the mobile industry
expects 100% of the cars sold in 2025 to be Internet enabled, which may disrupt Amer-
icans music consumption habits during their commute (McDuling, 2014). After all,
the percentage of Americans who listened to online radio in the car grew to 35% in
2014, which is nearly six times the number of those who did so in 2010 (6%). The num-
ber of Americans who subscribed to on-demand music services tripled between 2011
and 2014as of 2014, about 7.7 million Americans were currently subscribers to Web-
based music services such as Pandora Internet Radio and Spotify (Friedlander, 2014),
with steady audience growth since 2007 (Vogt, 2015).
It should be noted that Pandora and Spotify are different kinds of online music
services. Whereas the former acts similarly to terrestrial radio (i.e., users are asked
to choose a station), the latter offers on-demand selection from a large music library,
although it also offers radio features. Pandora has been the leading online music
service in the United States for some time, but its subscriber growth is slowing down.
Contrarily, Spotify is gaining momentum. Nonetheless, this growth disparity may
reflect the fact that Spotify has a much more expansive operation. Spotify operates in
over 50 countries, whereas as of 2016 Pandora only offers services in the United States,
Australia, and New Zealand. It is likely that Pandora will reach its saturation point
soon, if it has not done so already.
With the rise of online music and streaming services, in 2014 digital products
accounted for 66% of the music industrys total revenue, although the industrys
revenue composition remains relatively balanced: 37% from digital downloads, 27%
from streaming, 32% from physical purchases, and 4% from other sources (e.g.,
ringtones; Friedlander, 2014).

News use

Local and network news

The most frequented news medium in the United States is local TV news, followed by
national news networks (American Press Institute, 2014). News media enjoyed a slight
audience growth in 2014 (Matsa, 2015a, 2015b). For evening news, NBC has consis-
tently outperformed ABC and CBS since 2008. However, when it comes to morning
news, ABC had the most viewership between 2012 and 2014, and it also had the most
online traffic (by number of unique visitors) on desktop and mobile (Matsa, 2015b).
 ME D I A US E: UN I T E D STAT E S 5

Cable news
Fox was the prime-time leader in cable news in 2014, followed by MSNBC and
CNN. Overall, prime-time viewership on all three channels was down, though CNN
(viewership down 9%, to 495,000 nightly views) and MSNBC (down 8%, to 568,000
nightly views) struggled the most, and FOX was least affected (down 1%, to 1.7 million
nightly views). In terms of online traffic, CNN had the most traffic on desktop and
mobile, and MSNBC performed the worst on both digital platforms (Holcomb, 2015).

Newspapers
The newspaper industry has been pushing for an all-digital future for years, but
most readership still takes place in print (56%) and only a minority of readers are
digital-only (6% desktop only and 5% mobile only). These figures continue to challenge
the newspaper industrys much anticipated all-digital future. In looking at newspaper
websites by traffic, in January 2015 USAToday.com topped the chart with about
55 million unique visitors, followed by NYTimes.com (54 million) and DailyMail.co
.uk (51 million; Barthel, 2015).

Aggregators
Looking at overall online traffic across all news media, news aggregatorssites that
primarily curate content from other news organizations rather than produce their own
contentare consistently the most frequented news sources among US online users.
Specifically, Yahoo News, Google News, and the Huffington Post have been regular
winners over the years since 2005. Compared to nonusers, aggregator users tend to
be younger and are more likely to be White, and they tend to use aggregators for infor-
mation, entertainment, and social reasonsnot for opinions (e.g., opinion validation;
Lee & Chyi, 2015).
The news industry often sees aggregators as competitors or thieves, but research
finds that a noncompetitive relationship exists between Americans use of aggregators
and their use of newspapers, TV news, radio news, and social networking sites, after
accounting for the influence of demographics and news interest (Lee & Chyi, 2015). In
other words, those who consume news from aggregators are also more likely to consume
news from other mainstream news websites.

Polarized news use habits

American men and women tend to have different news interests. Women are more likely
to follow news on schools and education (69% vs. 50%), health and medicine (74% vs.
56%), lifestyle topics (58% vs. 30%), and entertainment and celebrities (44% vs. 28%),
whereas men are more likely to follow foreign or international news (75% vs. 61%) and
sports news (57% vs. 34%; American Press Institute, 2014).
6 ME D I A US E: UN I T E D STAT E S

Most online newspapers available to Americans as of May 2015 do not have paywalls,
which allows online users easy access to diverse opinions and viewpoints. However,
instead of having a politically balanced media diet (i.e., consuming news from both con-
servative and liberal sources), most Americans tend to choose news sources that align
with their political ideology. This is noteworthy because media choices are positively
correlated with congenial news consumption (i.e., consumption of news that agrees
with individuals political viewpoints), and the latter has been found to lead to polit-
ical polarization, where individuals on opposite ends of the political spectrum grow
further apart.

Problems in mainstream reports on media use

Mainstream reports on how the public uses media influence the ways in which media
organizations allocate their resources and shape future content delivery and consump-
tion patterns. For this reason, it is important to understand how mainstream outlets
discuss media use.
For example, the Pew Research Center publishes a state of the news media report
every year, and, as an authoritative voice on this subject, it is often cited in the news
media and academic literature. Pews 2015 report (Mitchell, 2015) suggested on its front
page that mobile is the future for news; however, it also discussed elsewhere in the report
(in the digital news audience section) that, while most online news sites get more
traffic from mobile devices than desktop computers, which contributed to the reports
claim of a mobile majority, time spent on the former remained relatively short com-
pared to time spent on the latter (Olmstead & Shearer, 2015, para. 2). From a media use
perspective, the questions that should be asked (but that are not being asked) include:
Does the second piece of information challenge the reports front-page argument of a
mobile majority (Mitchell, 2015, para. 1)? If so, in what way? These kinds of media-
use-centric questions necessitate more discussion but are often omitted in mainstream
reports.
When examining media use, knowing the survey question and response items used
to measure the behavior is important. For example, in measuring mobile use, the 2012
biennial news consumption survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates
International for the Pew Research Center asked, Did you get any news on a cellphone,
tablet or other mobile handheld device yesterday, or not? Yes/no. Had any mainstream
report adopted this measure in its discussion about mobile news consumption, it would
have been factual but likely not meaningful because one would have no way of knowing
exactly what kind of news use it measured (i.e., active versus passive, and purposeful
versus accidental), yet how news is consumed makes a difference in media use research.
The subject becomes more complicated when one attempts to measure social media
use. For example, a report in 2013 by Pew stated, roughly half of both Facebook and
Twitter users get news on those sites (Holcomb, Gottfried, & Mitchell, 2013, para. 2).
However, since all social networking sites have adopted the newsfeed format for content
delivery, it has become increasingly difficult for users to shun news on social media alto-
gether, hence getting news can mean different things to different social media users
 ME D I A US E: UN I T E D STAT E S 7

(e.g., random news stories that show up on ones newsfeed from time to time due to
ones friends likes or posts vs. ones subscription to breaking news updates from news
organizations on social media).
In short, in order to fully understand media use and its subsequent influence on
media effects, it is important that mainstream outlets and media scholars examine and
report on multiple dimensions of media use (i.e., not only number of users or whether
one has ever used a medium but also the amount and kind of use), and it is crucial that
survey questions and response items are included in such discussions.

SEE ALSO: Selective Exposure; Uses and Gratifications: Basic Concept

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8 ME D I A US E: UN I T E D STAT E S

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Angela M. Lee is an assistant professor of emerging media and communication at the

University of Texas at Dallas, USA. Her research focuses on audiences, news consump-
tion, media uses and effects, behavior prediction, and ethics. Dr. Lees work has been
published in peer-reviewed journals such as Communication Research, Journalism &
Mass Communication Quarterly, and the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media,
garnering attention from mainstream outlets such as the New York Times and the Los
Angeles Times. She has received several highly selective awards, including the Top Fac-
ulty Paper Award and News Audience Research Paper Award from the Association for
Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.