An investigation of financial and business journalists' use of virtual press rooms

Abstract

This study employs the uses and gratifications approach to examine financial and business journalists' use of virtual press rooms to acquire information. A survey of 90 financial journalists and editors was employed to determine the uses and gratifications sought (GS) and obtained (GO) by business and financial journalists using virtual press rooms. Additionally, this study examined what variables were important in determining uses and gratifications and examined what types of information financial and business journalists would like to access from virtual press rooms. There were three major findings. First, the gratifications sought and obtained dimensions found in this study were similar to the gratifications structure found in previous studies. Second, the key finding of this project was the difference between the GS and GO factor profile. The gratifications sought from financial journalists were "information utility," "pursuit of information" and "news value" but when you step back to evaluate what gratifications were obtained, "information utility," "design quality" and "information burden" were the primary areas of focus. Third, the data suggested that the longer the respondent had been a financial journalist the more he or she utilized virtual press rooms and valued the information. In addition, the research showed that not only do journalists desire accurate financial information, such as annual reports and quarterly reports, but they also desire access to general company and executive information (e.g., corporate profiles, executive profiles). This research is also consistent with uses and gratifications theory and validates its theoretical framework.