Chapter 12
The Mobile Media Experience
Xu Xiaoge
Editors’ Note: This chapter makes the compelling ca that mobile news is not a gear change but a game change in the world of journalism and mobile experiences. Bad on surveys and comparative analysis, this chapter identifies the different kinds of mobile news, ranging from SMS to apps. It provides examples of websites that allow urs around the world to post news items via mobile devices and of alternate news movements and mobile activism to counter repressive regimes. Personalisation and participation via mobiles have transformed news from consumption to experience. The chapter also propos quantitative and qualitative ways of measuring the mobile news experience and argues that mobile journalism should be taught formally to all students, not just journalism students.
Our world has become more mobile than ever, with 6 billion mobile subscribers, which is more than 87 percent of the total population. With mobile subscriptions outnumbering fixed lines by a ratio of 5-to-1 and mobile broadband subscriptions exceeding fixed broadband subscriptions by 2-to-1 (ITU 2011), the volume of mobile connections has brought about an explosion of mobile activities, including mobile
instant messaging, text messaging, tweeting, blogging, location-bad rvices, booking, banking, reading, gaming, shopping, emailing, social networking, following and eking news, listening to audios, and watching videos.
Mobile activities have been further boosted by growth in mobile web usage and social media. More than 62 percent of 24 online-connected countries ud the internet for social networking (Ipsos 2012). In the U.S., four in five active internet urs ud social media and
clo to 40 percent of social media urs accesd content on their mobile devices (Nieln 2011). In China, mobile internet urs reached 356 million by June 2012 (CNNIC 2012) while social media urs hit 257 million in 2011 (eMarketer 2012).
Behind the explosion of mobile activities are the changing motivations of mobile urs in this mobile world characterid by speed and ubiquity of information, as well as by instantaneous and simultaneous respon and action. The changing motivations include staying informed anytime anywhere, staying current, staying connected socially and engaged with other people, and staying efficient in getting work done. They also include being curious about things and people, being diverted by engaging in some light activity, and being socially unavailable when necessary by burying onelf on a mobile site or in mobile apps (Taylor and Ramey 2009).
As a natural conquence of mobile urs’ motivations and their mobile activities, mobile experience has not been fully examined in either academia or industry, especially in relation to mobile news. The current chapter begins with an examination of mobile news and how it can be experienced, followed by a definition of mobile experience. At the core of this chapter are two investigations measuring mobile experience: 1) a survey of mobile urs about the importance of mobile experience in eking and following news on mobile devices and 2) a comparative feature analysis of mobile experience in news apps. The chapter ends with ways to enhance mobile experience.
Mobile News
Mobile has been changing human lives in significant ways: more access to the mobile web, a simpler and more ur-friendly mobile experience, life-saving opportunities, friction-free mobile purchasing, multitasking, hyper-personalisation, privacy-and-curity consciousness in data sharing, and minimid mobile phobia (Pollard 2012). All the changes reflect the fact
that urs are increasingly dependent on mobile for content and rvices, which include, among others, mobile learning, mobile health, mobile money, mobile booking, mobile banking, mobile games, mobile shopping, mobile transactions, mobile business, mobile advertising, mobile public rel
ations, mobile corporate communications, mobile social media, mobile governance, and mobile news. Among the most popular mobile destinations is news.
Mobile news can be defined as news that is reported, published, or shared on mobile devices through different channels. Categorid by channels, mobile news falls into five major types: 1) short message rvice (SMS) news, 2) multimedia message rvice (MMS) news, 3) mobile site news, 4) mobile app news, and 5) mobile social media news. SMS news refers to news that is reported, published, or shared through an SMS, while MMS news is multimedia in nature, containing texts, videos, pictures, and/or ringtones. Mobile site news, provided by mainstream news media, is normally published on a parate mobile site. Mobile app news refers to news carried by apps developed by news providers and downloaded on mobile devices for urs to consume, produce, or share. No internet connection is required after the content is downloaded or updated. Mobile social media news refers to news stories that are reported, published, broadcast, or shared on mobile devices via social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Foursquare.
It is an undeniable fact that mobile news has been on a rapid ri in terms of production, dismination, and consumption, changing the news media landscape dramatically. In the U.S., almost half of all American adults (47 percent) got some kind of local news on their mobile devices a
s of February 2012 (Smith 2012). In China, 62.7 percent of mobile subscribers got news on their mobile phones by the end of June 2012 (CNNIC 2012). [Au: Plea add full citation for this resource to the References.] In five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.), the total number of mobile news urs reached 37 percent as of January 2012 (comScore 2012).
While traditional media in most countries are struggling for audiences and revenues, mobile has been enjoying exponential popularity among urs and increasing viability in most operations. For instance, the mobile industry has become the largest revenue earner among different media industries in China, earning more than $30 billion in 2010 excluding phone call revenues (Cui 2011).
Equipped with many different functionalities and apps on their mobile devices, mobile urs can write, record, shoot, edit, and publish content anytime and anywhere—changing the way content is written, produced, published, delivered, and shared, and generating an exponential amount of content. In the prence of exploding ur-generated content, to stay relevant and to attract audiences, traditional media have to go mobile to engage and empower “viewers, listeners, and readers who can contribute content through mobile and web-bad platforms” (Verclas 2008, 3). For example, besides its mobile site and mobile app, CNN also has a parate website, iReport, to host stories nt by citizens from their mobile devices all over the world. Although differing in operations, t
raditional news media such as BBC, Fox, Al Jazeera, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are increasing their mobile prence and influence.
More passionate about going mobile than mainstream media, however, are citizen media, which are limited in terms of offline resources, reach, and impact. With its rvice coverage of more than 700 mobile networks around the world, Allvoices (2012) enables mobile urs worldwide to report news via mobile phone. Serving as a community-driven platform for citizen journalism, Allvoices has become a global venue for news and idea exchange. Global Voices provides another venue for mobile journalists to publish and share their stories worldwide. With “a community of more than 500 bloggers and translators around the world,” Global Voices aggregates and translates reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, “with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international
mainstream media” (Global Voices, 2012). A global news community of amateur and independent reporters created in 2006, Citizenside offers a platform, online and mobile, for people to “share their vision of the news by uploading photos and videos for fellow reporters to e” (Citizenside, 2012).
Going mobile has become highly desired and much appreciated in time of crisis, especially in countri
es where critical information is blocked or censored. This was evident and well-documented in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain in the Arab Spring of 2011. The 2012 crisis in Syria provided further evidence of the power of mobile in capturing and sharing information locally and globally. “In Syria, activists and citizen journalists fill a media void and strategically inform the global conversation on the uprising by capturing and sharing their own footage” (Verclas 2012).
Going mobile is no longer an option for the media industry; it is a must if the industry is to stay relevant to its audiences globally or locally by meeting the changing needs, tastes, and preferences of mobile urs. This is especially true when it comes to changing reading habits and patterns among the mobile-savvy population. In China, mobile reading has become so popular that a special term has been coined to describe it: “finger reading.” Finger reading has become a common sight on the go: in cabs, cars, bus, trains, boats, airplanes, or queues—literally everywhere mobile urs are prent. It is also especially widespread when it comes to mobile urs’ preferences for faster and shorter updates in the ca of feature phones and for the consumption of rich media content on the go in the ca of smartphones. Furthermore, it is mobile urs’ insatiable needs and desires for more engagement and empowerment on the go that have become one of the major driving forces for mobile content. Going mobile in the ca of traditional news media is a timely respon to the changi
ng lifestyle of mobile urs, who rely heavily on mobile devices for weather information, news, work, and even daily life and social activities.
