@article{2016:gehrau:issue_entr,
title = {Issue entropy in the Internet age},
year = {2016},
note = {The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the diffusion of the
Internet on audience fragmentation in Germany. Fragmentation is
defined in terms of a declining probability that an individual will
find like-minded others who are concerned about the same issues as
that individual. Accordingly, fragmentation increases if the number of
issues the individual is concerned about (nominal issue diversity)
declines and the entropy of issues at the level of society (issue
entropy) increases. The paper provides a brief review of publications
concerned with media, fragmentation, and issue entropy. It then picks
up a recent study, which revealed no relevant changes in nominal issue
diversity in Germany during the period of Internet diffusion. In a
second step, survey data representative for the German population
during the same time period is analyzed to test for an increase in
issue entropy. The findings reveal a small but systematic trend of
growing issue entropy. This trend could not be attributed to the
diffusion of the Internet. First, it was not possible to do so because
age groups that had different rates of Internet adoption demonstrated
a lack of differences in issue entropy. Second, there are differences
between the dynamics of issue entropy and the dynamics pertaining to
the diffusion of the Internet as entropy decreased after 2000, whereas
the diffusion of the Internet continued to increase rapidly. It is
there- fore concluded that the diffusion of the Internet did not cause
issue fragmentation during the sample period from 1994 to 2005.},
journal = {SCM Studies in Communication and Media},
pages = {334--352},
author = {Gehrau, Volker and Haake, Gianna},
volume = {5},
number = {3}
}