Immediacy as news experience: exploring its multiple dimensions in print and online contexts

Purpose

News research scholars define immediacy as constant news updating, whereas scholars in other fields conceptualize it more broadly as meaning closeness. The present study explicates the concept of immediacy and proposes a multidimensional notion of news immediacy that reflects physical and psychological closeness to the news.

Design/methodology/approach

A scale for measuring multifaceted immediacy was developed and tested in a between-subjects design experiment. Four dimensions were extracted from the analysis: transportation, involvement, vividness and timeliness.

Findings

The results reveal greater immediacy in online than print news contexts. Involvement is key to the experience of immediacy in both contexts; yet the feeling of being transported to the places of the news events was stronger among online than print news users. The latter relied more on vividness of the news presentation to attain closeness to the news.

Originality/value

Implications of the study were discussed.