As mobile media have grown more advanced, and mobile Internet access has increased to a near-ubiquitous state, media use is often described as occurring “anytime, anywhere.” Consequently, measuring media use and understanding competition and coexistence within such an environment is a constant challenge for researchers. To help address this issue the present study explicates a method for measuring media use and competition, the time–space diary, and reports a methodological study testing the robustness of this method across 3 diary instruments. Following a summary of concepts central to mobile media use and measurement, this study reports findings from data collected using 3 types of time–space diaries. Results indicate no significant difference between diary methods (paper and pencil, audio recorder, mobile device) on the likelihood of reported media use, and minimal differences in patterns of competitive superiority, supporting the reliability of the method. Paper-and-pencil diaries are argued to offer the greatest use flexibility relative to audio recorders and mobile devices, and received higher ease of use scores relative to mobile devices. The article concludes with a discussion of the utility of the time–space diary method for emerging mobile media research which must account for media use in novel times and places, as well as multichannel media consumption.

Media-afforded information control pertains to individuals' abilities to utilize the features of interpersonal communication channels such that they are able to express information or withhold information in a manner consistent with their needs. Building on the uses and gratifications perspective and an intersectional view of media affordances, the purpose of this article was to assess the connection between afforded information control and obtaining positive outcomes. The results of both the survey and diary studies in a 2-part empirical investigation showed a positive relationship between reports on the expressive dimension of the information control scale and indicators of positive outcomes. To the author's knowledge, the diary study conducted in the second part of this investigation was the first to test the association between a media affordance, measured during a preliminary questionnaire stage, and outcomes assessed in later diary-recorded interactions in non-laboratory settings.

According to the theory of the niche, media must differentiate themselves along resource dimensions that allow for their survival to compete and coexist within a resource space. Within this study, contacts with personal relationships are framed as a key resource domain over which channels of interpersonal communication (interpersonal media) compete to occupy niches within the resource spaces of social networks. One hundred and forty-two college undergraduates completed a time/space diary for a randomly assigned weekday in which they recorded their contacts or ‘bundles’ with members of their personal social network. Analysis of the data shows that interpersonal media coexist because they are differentiated from each other in the contacts they allow with different relationships at different times and locations. Although evidence is found regarding heavy competition among the media under analysis, each is used in different time/space/network relationship contexts.

The recent growth of mobile channels has provided steadily increasing opportunities for individuals to access news and other mass-mediated content. Media ecological perspectives argue that the introduction of such new technologies can shift the existing biases in prevailing social systems. According to one ecological perspective, the theory of the niche, when new media technologies are successfully introduced into a domain, displacement may occur unless some alteration is made to the resource base. Interstices are conceptualized as the gaps in the routines of media users between scheduled activities. Through the use of a diary method, participants logged access to news using a variety of communication technologies, including mobile channels. Results indicated that traditional media occupied traditional niches with little evidence of displacement, while mobile channels occupied a new niche: access in the interstices.

According to O'Sullivan's (2000) impression management model of communication channels, individuals will prefer to use mediated channels rather than face-to-face conversation in face-threatening situations. Within his model, this trend is due to the channel features that allow for control over exchanged social information. The present paper extends O'Sullivan's model by explicating information control as a media affordance, arising from channel features and social skills, that enables an individual to regulate and restrict the flow of social information in an interaction, and present a scale to measure it. One dimension of the information control scale, expressive information control, positively predicted channel preference for recalled face-threatening situations. This effect remained after controlling for social anxiousness and power relations in relationships.

This research explores race- and gender-related selection bias in national television news coverage of missing children cases. When the proportions of race and gender from the news coverage of five national television stations between 2005 and 2007 were compared to official missing children statistics, it was found that African American missing children and female missing children were significantly underrepresented in television news coverage. It is argued that such things as newsroom diversity, news operation routines, media ownership, and commercial motives of media contribute to the race- and gender-related media bias.

The uses and gratifications approach has been useful in explaining media use by individuals. However, it has been limited in that the use of a medium has always been considered independently from other media options available and from use trends occurring at the level of a population. The theory of the niche has been used to partially overcome these limitations by examining uses and gratification concepts in the context of media competition; but, up to this point, it has only been used to explain trends at the system level. Through the introduction of repertoire niches, the present article extends the theory of the niche by examining competition at the level of the individual within the resource space of his/her media repertoire. Results indicate that repertoire niche dimensions of breadth, overlap, and superiority have some predictive power over media use.

The theory of niche proposes that a new medium competes with older, more established media to fulfill users' needs. This study uses niche theory, a macrolevel theory, as well as social information processing theory and the theory of electronic propinquity, both microlevel theories, to examine the niche of instant messaging (IM) in providing general gratifications. Results indicate that IM is characterized by a broad niche, surpassed only by that of the cell phone. IM had substantial niche overlap with e-mail and the cell phone, indicating a degree of substitutability between them; the least overlap was with the landline telephone (LLP). The hierarchy that emerged indicated that the cell phone was superior to IM, which was superior to e-mail, followed by the LLP for providing general gratifications. Finally, displacement tests indicated that IM use displaced e-mail and LLP but not cell phone use. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.