Greek journalists in the digital era: innovators or laggards?

1. Greek journalists in the digital era: innovators or laggards? Anna Panagiotarea & Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou

2. Introduction • Scientific framework: the impact of the Internet on journalism in the digital era • This paper examines: • the use and the level of adoption of the Internet by Greek journalists • their attitudes as far as this new technology is concerned • its impact on their daily working practices • Our research is theoretically based on the model of innovation diffusion

3. Diffusion of the Internet (I) • Diffusion is defined as the process • by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels (interpersonal channels & mass media) among the members of a social system • That requires time in any social system • through which an innovation is accepted or rejected in a given social system (Rogers, 1995)

4. Diffusion of the Internet (II) • Is a process that goes through five stages: • knowledge about or exposure to an innovation • formation or attitude or persuasion • decision of adoption or rejection • implementation • confirmation-reinforcement

5. Diffusion of the Internet (III) • the decision to adopt or reject an innovation depends on a variety of factors: • adopter-related personality traits • socioeconomic influences • interpersonal channels and media use • perceived attributes of an innovation

6. Diffusion of the Internet (IV) • The characteristics of innovations that influence the user’s attitudes are: • relative advantage • compatibility • complexity • observability • trialability

7. Empirical researchMethodology • Method: Self-administered structured questionnaire • Sample: Journalists working in local and national media (251: 93% respond rate) • 10 national daily newspapers and two local daily newspapers, seven television stations and four radio stations • The majority of journalists works in several media, so a clear distinction between press and broadcast journalists was not possible. • Therefore we studied our sample as ‘journalists’ in general, applying other distinction criteria, such as age, gender, education

8. Sample description (I)

9. Sample description (II)

10. Sample description (III)

11. Results (Internet use) • Internet penetration among Greek journalists reaches almost the half of this particular professional category • Most popular uses: • search for news (69%) • gathering information to write an article (50,6%) • sending emails (46%) • Least popular uses: • 83,5% have never joined a forum • 90,3% have never entered a chat room

12. Use of the Internet as research medium

13. Use of the Internet as information medium

14. Use of the Internet as communication medium

15. Results (email use) • This laggardness in exploiting the Internet as a communication medium is evident in the next set of answers • Uses of email: • ask information for an article: 16,5% • communicate with colleagues: 24,3% • communicate with their friends/relatives: 13,3% • 74,5% never arrange a professional meeting via email • 67,2% have never communicated with the public

16. Perceived usefulness • Although the penetration of the new technologies is quite modest in a professional group that we expected that they would make extended use of them, an overwhelming majority (98,4%) believe that the Internet makes their work easier

17. Reasons for not using the Internet • 22% prefer traditional ways of communicating and researching • 21% blame the management/ownership of reluctance to lead towards adoption or invest in new technologies • 17% have no training • 16% find no use in entering the Internet • 14% find it too complex • 10% do not have the time to learn how to use it or actually use it

18. Perceived future role of journalist • The answers are concentrated around two different poles: • 41,1% believe that journalists should become providers of specialized information • 34% believe that journalists can survive only as critical analysts • While 20,7% adopt a more neutralized attitude and believe in the future of journalists as neutral information brokers

19. Factors affecting Internet use • We correlate our results with the age, the gender and the education level of the respondents • Our hypothesis is that there is a strong relation between the use of technology and the age, the gender and the education of the journalists

20. Age • Age plays a significant role in the use and the adoption of the Internet • The differences among the various age groups are significant and indicative for the generation gap regarding new technologies • The majority of the respondents who use the Internet everyday to perform various actions are under 45 years old • The respective percentage drops significantly at the age of over 45 years old

21. Gender • Though expected that gender would play a significant role in the use of technology, our research shows that there are not significant differences between male and female journalists • It seems that the Internet and the email are important tools for the journalistic work and thus are integrated into the everyday working life of journalists irrespective from their gender • The differences might not be large, but the superiority of men (abut 10%) in the use of technology is apparent in our data

22. Education level • Our correlation tests show that there is significant statistical difference in the case of Internet use and education level • Heavy users of the Internet are University graduates and graduates from the Technological Institutes (ATEI) • No significant differences are noted regarding the use of email

23. Major remarks (I) • Our study reveals that Greek journalists do not belong to the innovators in adopting new technologies, as Internet penetration in this professional category is a little above 50% • Although they accept and demonstrate their perceived usefulness of new technologies, there is evidence that there is a level of resistance to adoption • As our results have shown, this resistance is ought to factors such as the age, the gender and the education level of the respondents

24. Major remarks (II) • Our data demonstrate that age and education play a pivotal role in the level of new technologies adoption, while gender affects the use in a secondary fashion • Dominant profile of a Greek journalist: under 45 years old, male and University graduate • We could characterize this group as the innovators of professional journalists, while the rest of them are the laggards or the late adopters

25. Issues for consideration (I) • The reluctant media owners for investments in new technologies, the limited training of journalists in new technologies and time constraints are a burden for journalists that hinders them to enter the digital era. • We should also highlight the responsibility of the state regarding the embracement and the promotion of the Internet. The state investments in new technologies are extremely limited, which is obvious in the low penetration rates in Greece (19,5%). • There is also an underlying fear that those journalists who will not be able to keep pace with the new technological developments will be left out of the profession.

26. Issues for consideration (II) • Last but not least, another highly important issue is the way that journalists exploit and incorporate into their work the various information that they gather on the Internet. The level of reliability and accuracy remains an open question on the Internet where inaccurate information and possible propaganda channels thrive uncontrolled. • A recent example is the weblog of Margot Wallström, who is blogging weekly in an attempt to make the topic of Europe as familiar as the weather or taxes. Her attempt has already provoked withering criticism among journalists who claim that the Commissioner’s intent is to create a propaganda-style broadcasting arm.

27. Thank you for your attention!