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Getting Hooked on News: Uses and Gratifications and the Formation of News Habits Among College Students in an Internet Environment

The present research proposed a theory of news habit formation based in the uses and gratifications paradigm and applied it to emerging patterns of news consumption among college students. Five distinctive patterns emerged: hometown newspapers, comedy news, cable news, Internet news, and broadcast news. A sixth consumption pattern included diverse sources specializing in depth news coverage. Surveillance and escapism gratifications were the most consistent predictors of news consumption behavior across these patterns. However, habit strength was the most powerful predictor of news consumption overall. Consumption of depth and hometown newspaper sources were related to current events knowledge.