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This chapter discusses the concept of audience selectivity, with particular reference to the extent with which news audiences focus their Internet time on the news. It first explains selectivity as a general concept and how people choose media and messages. It then turns to a discussion of how people select online news sites and stories. It also examines the effect of specific topics on news outlets and the content they provide, and how online news informs people about political affairs. Finally, the chapter describes how audience selectivity results in audience specialization as well as news browsing.

This chapter examines the seeming contradictions of online news and how the online news environment will evolve. It first considers how the news business operates online and how the news is influenced, created, and consumed by Internet audiences. It then looks at audience selectivity and news specialization, the fragmentation of knowledge in the online environment, the concept of information democratization, and how attending to the news affects what people know about public affairs. It also analyzes how the apparent contradictions and conflicts regarding online news relate to some of the most important potential consequences of the evolution of news on the Internet. In particular, it discusses how online news will interact with other social institutions and phenomena. The chapter concludes by assessing the future of online news and the ways in which news may develop online and offline.

This chapter focuses on breadth of news content and its relationship with audience segments. More specifically, it examines how the content of news on the Internet is tailored to specific audience characteristics and interests. After considering the history of medium specialization and how media tend to evolve, the chapter explains how online news providers make use of technological interactivity and audience selectivity. It also outlines the organizing structure of media evolution and how content and audience segmentation or specialization arise from media competition and development. In addition, it looks at some of the factors that tend to restrain the segmentation of online news content and audiences into discrete units. Finally, it discusses the structures of online news and the categorization of news through the production of hard and soft news.