News repertoires and information behavior in Austria—What is the role of social inequality?

Abstract

The changes in the global mediascape have had a tremendous impact on societal news flows. Using data from the Social Survey Austria 2018 and a quantitative application of the media repertoire approach, the article illustrates how information behavior and news seeking relate to social status, political orientation and sociodemographics. The results confirm that the developments in Austria—often referred to as a representative of a traditional media landscape—are mostly in line with international trends, as new media have been added to the media repertoires of approximately two-thirds of the sample. Effects tied to social inequality generally match previous assumptions: Higher educational achievements and income lead to more diversified news repertoires. Additionally, the overall structure of the data indicates that the online-only users are still a small minority, consisting of younger individuals who are less likely to work and more likely to vote for left-wing parties.