Time budget, news search time cost, and news media choice

Applying a microeconomic framework, this study analyzes how people allocate their time on traditional and new news media in the age of media abundance. It argues that people with tight time budgets (more work time and less leisure time) spend less time on the consumption of traditional news media than people with loose time budgets (more leisure time and less work time). Moreover, people with tight time budgets allocate more of their news consumption time on new media than people with loose time budgets because of the low news search time cost common to new media services. Data for the empirical analysis were collected in a random sample mail survey with 253 respondents in the Midwest United States from September to November, 2012.