Analyzing the Influence of Websites Attributes on the Choice of Newspapers on the Internet

In the last years, newspaper publishing is one of the activities that have been more affected by the development of the Internet. The appearance of the new digital media has brought far-reaching changes in this sector. This research is one of the first studies that analyse online press reader behaviour on the Internet. Thus, this research studies the key factors that could influence on the choice of digital newspapers. More specifically, this study focuses on the analysis of the effect of usability of the digital newspapers, reputation, trust, privacy and familiarity with the websites, on the final choice of digital dailies. For that, a survey on the Internet was applied. The scales were validated and refined, after which the hypotheses were tested by way of a structural equation model. It was possible to find out that there is an intense effect of usability and familiarity with the websites on the choice of electronic newspaper. However, reputation and trust to the websites do not influence significantly on the choice of digital dailies. In this way, we must note that readers do not perceive risk or costs derived from making wrong choices, because the change of news´ supplier is fast and easy. Also, privacy has not a significant influence on the final reading of digital newspaper. This could be explained by the fact that readers should not usually give personal data to the daily website, except in the case of subscription to special services. In this case, the information is not too private. Consequently, the main aspects which justify digital newspaper reading should be considered by the management in order to potentate its use. Also, newspaper firms should make efforts to improve the levels of usability of their websites. Moreover, digital dailies should develop strategies in order to ensure loyal readers that could be familiarized with the new medium.