Occurrence and Triggers of Mobile News Exposure: A Screenshot-Based ESM Study

Mobile phone has a variety of apps and services where users can encounter news. However, existing research mainly focused on news exposure on specific apps and has relied on retrospective methods. Thus, the connection between news exposure and their triggers remains unclear. We conducted a screenshot-based ESM study and have recruited twelve users who ran the study for fourteen days. Our results show that users’ different news exposures were associated with different kinds of triggers. For example, news exposure on content recommender systems was mainly triggered by the need for exploring news, whereas news exposure on messaging apps was mainly triggered by notifications. Future research can continue to study how context influences triggers and news exposure.