Term Paper

On
E-satisfaction of Online Newspaper Reader

Course: MIS 305

Title: Enterprise Management System

Section: 1

Prepared By:

Data of Submission: April 19, 2011

Table of Contents
April 14, 2011

Md. Ziaul Haque,

Course Instructor,

MIS 305, Section 1,

East West University

Subject: Letter of Transmittal.

Dear Sir,

With great pleasure we submit our term paper on “E-satisfaction of online

newspaper reader” that has been assigned to us as an important requirement of the
MIS305 course. We have found the study quite interesting, beneficial and
insightful. We have tried our level best to prepare an effective and creditable
report. We honestly hope that our analysis will help to give idea of e-satisfaction of
online newspaper reader in the perspective of Bangladesh.

We hope you will find this report worth all the labor we have put in it.

Yours sincerely,

Acknowledgement

First of all we are very grateful to almighty ALLAH that term paper has come into
an end within a given time.

Then we provide extreme thanks to each and every member who are the integral
parts of the group except whom the term paper might have been incomplete.

And finally we remember some of our friends and family members who co-
operated us filling up the survey paper and providing information about the entitled
term paper.
Executive Summary
 Introduction

Traditionally newspaper has been being an integral part of our daily life since
years. Earlier the process of gathering of news, reporting and circulations were left
as a centralized process in the hands of selected people. They were professional
journalists and they worked together in the institutions catering to providing news
across the country. Today for the sake of modern technology, there has been a
drastic change around the world. Though the word technology or even internet is
not a new thing in the perspective of globalization, it seems to be a magical one in
Bangladesh. The flourish of internet and the ability of this medium have enabled to
interact with public anywhere anytime. The general user of the net has also
developed the capacity of producing news instead of consuming it only as they
were doing earlier. Online newspaper can publish their content internally and send
it to all corners of the globe. From the standpoint of Bangladesh, online newspaper
has already been very popular among different aged people. It is now taking place
of the hand held newspaper. People are getting more introduced to internet media
through which the online newspaper has started taking place in peoples’ mind. We
would like to find current readership through online and the satisfaction of it.

Problem Discussion

The online newspaper concept is not well-known in Bangladesh. The key spotlight
of the report is to find out the satisfaction of online newspaper reader in
Bangladesh. In some developed countries online newspaper concept is common
and companies are doing business with this concept. So it has been a question why
this online newspaper concept is not practiced in this region or specially
Bangladesh? Why investors have not taken initiative to work with this concept?
They may perceive that it will not attract sufficient advertisement from different
sources. Readers are not used with the word online newspaper. Again literacy rate
is higher in developed countries where online newspaper has created a strong
position among readers. In Bangladesh literacy rate is low and readership is
positively related with the level of education. According to media survey 2002
readership was found about 26% in Bangladesh. So a huge amount of people in our
country are not in touch of technology. However, if we look at the factors that
contributed to the increase of readership of online newspaper where it has become
successful, we can see that consumers increasing their preferences towards the
quick update rather than lengthy process. Online newspapers are attracting young
readers that traditional newspapers have failed to do. It is challenge for online
newspaper to enhance the level of satisfaction of readership.

Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to explore the satisfaction of online newspaper
reader in Bangladesh. Also the aim is to know about the feedback from the online
readers which will be the backbone of online newspaper. We have also tried to find
out the real situation of readership among various aged people in Dhaka city which
is our main geographical area for future market.
 Target Market of the Study
We have tried to dig out the information concerning the online newspaper
readership satisfaction in order to provide real scenario for future investment in
this sector using technology. We believe that in the future there is huge possibility
or potential field for online newspaper in Bangladesh. In our report we provided all
available information and current statistics on the basis of 15 persons and internet
search.
 Methodology of the Study
In this part we will describe the methods used in the report and also try to fit the
best process for the study. This methodology has provided us the guideline on how
to collect data and analyze them in correct manner. Online newspaper reading is
not familiar as it is under the process of development. Due to limited materials and
lots of hurdles we performed an exploratory research which was carried out on
primary data as well as some secondary data. Our focus was exclusively qualitative
and we tried to come across the extremely confidential data for the online
newspaper. The motivation for choosing qualitative study is this sort of study helps
to gain a profound understanding of the concepts.
 Report Paradigm

Report Report Report Data Analysis

Strategy Collecti
Purpose Approach
on

Quality Standards of the Report

We have conducted our survey in two different ways:

1) Survey on 15 persons

2) Searching different websites.

The process ultimately helps us to understanding the concept of the satisfaction of

the online newspaper reader. As we know that qualitative study involves an in
depth understanding of human behavior habits which start different types of
question and investigation in the field of selected people.
 Factors that Influence Online Newspaper Reading Behavior

The diversity of communications media is increasing. In the past decade the

biggest new media to surface were mobile telephony and the Internet. New media
are causing a shift from analogue, separately used print media and audiovisual
media to integrated electronic media. For example, mobile telephones now feature
functions for digital photography, playing music, chatting and web browsing. The
Internet essentially covers all of the functions of other existing communications
media: it facilitates listening to radio broadcasts, watching television, making
phone calls, looking up information or reading the news. This article will report on
a study of the factors influencing the usage of a specific part of the Internet: online
newspapers. Online newspapers are an established medium in developed countries.
Several researchers have expressed concerns applying technology acceptance
models to situations in which technology is already diffused. We have tried to find
out the factors that affect readers through using the following model:

Habit

Attitude Behaviora Use

Performan l Intention Behavior
ce
Expectanc

Effort
Expectanc
y
Social
Influence

Moderator:
Counter
intentional
Gender Age Experienc
Habit
e

Facilitating
Definition of the concepts above is given below:
Conditions

Concept Definition
Performance Expectancy The degree to which online newspaper
is regarded as useful as and better than
alternatives.
Effort Expectancy The degree to which online newspaper
is easy to understand.
Social Influence The degree to which influence person

Facilitating Conditions
Attitude
Counter intentional Habit
Behavioral Intention and USE Behavior
1. Gender and age
influence a subject’s decision to use the
online newspaper.
The degree to which constraints to the
use of the online newspaper is
perceived.
An individual’s overall reaction to the
system
The extent to which using alternatives to
the online newspaper has become
automatic to certain situations.
The extent of deliberate determination
of use behavior and participant’s actual
use behavior
1. A person’s gender and age

2. Experience 2. The degree to which somebody

has used the medium.

On the basis of these concepts we have tried to express that how people are
affected to read online newspaper and their satisfaction in return.
 Why Online Newspaper

Life moves at a fast pace and we are forced to leave parts of our pasts behind. As
the Internet serves as the vehicle that seamlessly connects people all over the
world, staying connected through space is no longer an issue. However, with the
vast archiving capabilities of the Internet, it has become possible to stay connected
through time as well. Old newspapers may be left forgotten but old news does
survive – in online archives. Old news archives are available in digitized formats,
therefore, old news articles and newspapers can be seen in their original formats.
People can read an old newspaper article which reported the sinking of the Titanic
if you chose to without ever needing to manually hunt through sheets and sheets of
old newsprint. This kind of online ‘preservation’ goes a long way in preserving
information that would have otherwise been lost as the pages of history are
irreversibly turned. Also, because of this, spotting changes in publishing trends or
presentation is quite an easy task and all this information can be used in assessing
social changes that have taken place. Changes in people’s expression become
visible and such data can provide quality research material for anthropological or
sociological studies.

The dawn of Internet brought new kind of lifestyle to news readers and
subscribers; however, it wasn't enough to change what others have been used to.
More people still subscribe to magazines and daily newspapers for their own
reasons. To sum it up, here are the six main reasons why people read newspaper.

1. To Get Latest Updates and News - majority of online newspaper readers want
to know the latest happenings around them and online newspaper is the easiest
medium to get updated. Although, newspaper has news forums or news
communities which also cater the latest news all over the world, online newspaper
offers something different.

2. To Find Satisfaction in Reading Good-Writing Skills - others read newspaper

to proofread what columnists have written. They can find satisfaction listing down
misspelled words and grammatically-wrong sentences. But they find greater
satisfaction when reading well-written articles and news.

3. To Find Information on Daily Living and Job Opening - it is better to check

the online newspaper for local job postings. Also, people expect to read daily
living tips or articles which they can use for their own livelihood.

4. To Simply Pass Time - nowadays, the most efficient way to pass time is to
browse through the Internet or play video games. However, others simply get to
online newspaper and look at the pictures or interesting stories but without even
reading the details; this will be their way of killing time or let it pass smoothly.

5. To Avoid Conversation - one way to avoid annoying conversations is to read or

pretend to read a newspaper in front of others. Those who can see someone reading
would also think the person is busy, unavailable or does not want to be disturbed.

6. To Keep the Habit - a lot of people have been reading newspapers for years and
it has become a habit for them to hold the paper in the morning with their coffee.
Now-a-days people have become very busy. So to keep the habit of reading
newspaper, they can easily get into online to read newspaper.

Report Design

The study has carried out in Bangladesh market. Topic of the report is more
generic. However, the basic thing is to provide an idea of readership satisfaction to
online newspaper in Bangladesh. Population of the report is news consumers.
Since this report is for readership satisfaction there is little cost implication for
readers. The rationale for selecting these populations is news readers are targeted
by online newspaper and they are the ultimate consumer in this sector. Newspaper
companies are directly involved with publishing. Finally, since the newspaper is
free to readers online it must have a source of revenue for the sustainability. Hence
advertisement is the core source of revenue. That is why business organization
with large advertisement expenditure also comes into consideration. The general
way to carry out the research is to investigate the market for online newspaper in
Bangladesh. In this case we would perform industry analysis guided by porter’s
five forces framework. Then we are also going to carry out competitive analysis
guided by porter’s framework. The way the research is going to be carried out will
be based on combination of method. Industry analysis will be carried out by
searching internet. Customer analysis will be done based on survey. Finally, the
competitive analysis will be based on interviews and secondary data. The grounds
for selecting this approach is that, using this method we will be able to have better
understanding regarding the readership satisfaction, and news consumers demand.
The limitation that guided us to choose this method is that there is limited scope to
deal with secondary source of information. That is why the research work is to be
done with first hand data collected by our own. In Bangladesh there is no officially
published information regarding online newspaper reading satisfaction.

Gathering Data

In collecting data for our research we have adopted non probability sampling
technique. Samples have been selected through judgmental sampling. The
underlying principle for choosing this method is limited availability of resources to
us particularly financial support and time. We have collected our data for industry
and competitive analysis using semi-structured interviews using questionnaire.
Also we have tried to collect secondary information from published journal,
articles. The length of each interview did not take more than 30 minutes. So the
question of the interviews were arranged in a way that interviewer would be able to
cover all the necessary aspects within specific time period. We have selected 10
major online newspaper companies in this regard. To understand the readership
and trend of people’s selection regarding newspaper, we developed questionnaire
and we have collected primary data. We have covered 15 respondents in different
place in Dhaka cities and we have chosen different age groups. The respondents
have classified according to age group and gender.

Questionnaire Design

A survey in the form of questionnaire is one of the most prevalent ways in

collecting original data, satisfaction measurements in a selected population. We
have chosen semi structure close ended question to carry out survey in two
different groups such as newspaper company (through online) and the people who
read online newspaper. We have designed questionnaire for our selected
populations. From these groups we have selected 10 online newspaper companies
and 15 persons.
Knowing Prepare Use the
the Questionn Questionn
Requirem aire aire
ents
 Rationale of Choosing Questionnaire

Research can be defined as seeking answers and explaining problems to develop

knowledge. Our primary focus of this report is to present the current situation of
readership satisfaction. For this purpose we have tried to find out the actual figures
from different sources. Due to lack of proper and dependable source for
information regarding our survey in Bangladesh we have chosen questionnaire
survey. By using questionnaire we have found almost concrete amount spent by the
different organizations. Also the focus of our questionnaire is to get an idea that
what people know about online newspaper and what are expectations in the future.
We did not force our population to answer every question because we want their
natural opinion.

Getting Respondents

Each successful research work is predominantly dependent on its respondents. A

well organized survey technique helps the surveyors to discover all hidden
information from its population. We tried to cover all categories people to address
our research question. We have taken most popular as well as less popular
newspaper company to get the real circumstances. When we were surveying
people we tried to conduct different age groups and different social groups. By
doing this we have got close to actual scenario of online readership satisfaction.

Reliability and Validity

Every research work is supposed to represent a logical set of statements and we
can judge the quality of the design according to certain logical tests. There are four
tests are relevant such as constructs validity, internal validity, external validity and
reliability. Although the term reliability is a concept used for testing or evaluating
quantitative research, this is also used in all kind of research. A good qualitative
study can help us to understand a situation that would otherwise be enigmatic or
confusing. Another research states that validity and reliability are two factors
which any qualitative researcher should be concerned about while designing a
study, analyzing the results and judging the quality of the study. The concept of
validity is described by a wide range of terms in qualitative studies. We tried to
make our questionnaires as simple as possible. To reach different age groups of the
society we have surveyed in different location in the city. In our questionnaire we
provided very easy questions and multiple answers which would not take much
time. To survey population we described our research topic to the respondents
because there is confidential information which they wouldn’t like to disclose
otherwise. But somehow we managed them and ensure them that we are not going
to share this information to third party and we are doing our research only for an
academic purpose. In that sense our questionnaires and answers are very reliable
and trustworthy.

Current Situation of online Reader

A decade ago, just one-in-fifty people got the news with some regularity from what
was then a brand new source the internet. Today, nearly one-in-three regularly get
news online. But the growth of the online news audience has slowed considerably
since 2000, particularly among the very young, which are now somewhat less
likely to go online for news than are people in their 40s. For the most part, online
news has evolved as a supplemental source that is used along with traditional news
media outlets. It is valued most for headlines and convenience, not detailed, in-
depth reporting. Broadcast news outlets continue to struggle over the last two
years alone, the audiences for nightly network, local TV news and radio news have
all slipped. Even so, the recent trends in news consumption are relatively stable
when compared to the 1990s when TV news in particular was suffering losses of
far greater magnitude. Similarly, the latest news consumption survey finds that
newspapers, which also have seen their audience decline significantly, are now
stemming further losses with the help of their online editions. However, the
discrete online-only newspaper audience is quite modest in size.

Four-in-ten persons say they read a newspaper yesterday, with 6% reading a

newspaper online 4% read both a print and online newspaper, while 2% read it
only online. In addition, 3% say they read something on a local or national
newspaper website yesterday. As a result, even the highest estimate of daily
newspaper readership 43% for both print and online readers is still well below the
number reading a print newspaper on a typical day 10 years ago (50%). A research
has shown that the audience for online news is fairly broad, but not particularly
deep. People who say they logged on for news yesterday spent 32 minutes, on
average, getting the news online. That is significantly less than the average number
of minutes that newspaper readers, radio news listeners, and TV news viewers
spend with those sources. And while nearly 48% spend at least 30 minutes getting
news on television, just 9% spend that long getting news online.

The web serves mostly as a supplement to other sources rather than a primary
source of news. Those who use the web for news still spend more time getting
news from other sources than they do getting news online. In addition, web news
consumers emphasize speed and convenience over detail. Of the 23% who got
news on the internet yesterday, only a minority visited newspaper websites. To
some degree, news consumers are drawn to the internet for the very reason that it
does not take much time to get news online. Most users say what distinguishes web
news is its format and accessibility the ease of navigation, speed with which
information can be gathered, and convenience “at my fingertips.” Convenience is a
factor for newspapers and television as well, but more readers and viewers refer to
the subject matter and journalistic and editorial qualities of the content than is the
case among web users. The views and habits that continue to constrain the size of
news audiences are shared widely among younger people. Nearly half 46% of
those who do not get a great deal of enjoyment from keeping up with news are
under age 40; similarly, 49% of those who check in with the news from time to
time, rather than get the news at regular times, are under age 40. These opinions
and news habits, which are largely unchanged from past surveys, are strongly
associated with less usage of all types of news sources, with an important
exception. People who like to check in on the news go online for news about as
often as do people who like to read or tune in at set times of the day.

While the growth of internet news has stalled among the very young, a significant
number of young people (13%) say they get news via a cell phone, a personal
digital assistant such as a Blackberry, or an iPod or similar portable music player.

Positive Facts

Bangladesh is the land of opportunity. About 150 million peoples are the base of
investment in any commercial sector. One of the largest mobile phone operators in
the world is Telenor and they have invested huge amount of money in Bangladesh
since 1997. Mr. Ola Ree, CEO of Grameen phone(local partner of Telenor) says,
My impression is very positive regarding investment in Bangladesh , I would say I
am more optimistic than expected”. Due to low readership and lower GDP there is
massive challenge to establish online newspaper company but enormous peoples
and 201 daily news papers showing the positive sign for gaining the success in this
regards. Bangladesh is in the path of a conversion from agrarian economy to an
industrial economy. The private sector is playing a gradually more active role in
the economic life of the country which will be a positive sign for the online
newspaper company.

Readership

Readership is the main way of measuring satisfaction. Several editor agreed that
readership is one of the most important and vital point for online newspaper. As
the readership increases, advertisers view the paper as an increasingly attractive
spot and it increases the revenue of the paper. Historically there are some countries
with high readership such as Sweden where 86% people. On the other hand
Bangladesh has only 26% readership which is very low and one of the main
obstacle for the online newspaper. However, the economic situation of Bangladesh
improving every decades and it will also facilitate the improvement in readership.

Industry Analysis
The newspaper industry in Bangladesh has a large tendency of political favor.
Three categories of newspaper are being published online in Bangladesh. In
Bangladesh there are two major political parties enjoying the democracy. There is
some newspapers who always present news in favor of their block such as their
party preferred news, some are writing in favor of the others and some are
presenting neutral news in their newspaper. Readers of online newspaper are also
classified according to these criteria. A reader who is the follower of one political
party he always goes for the one that publishes news in favor of his preferred party.
Reader who is longing for neutral news they always go for the neutral one. So this
is the trend based on which news paper companies are doing business. All the
companies are doing business and making profit out of this because of the large
population base and existence of different views in peoples’ mind about the
political system. However, one important thing is to mention that Bangladesh is
country of 150 million people. So it has a strong ground for searching business
opportunities. Online newspaper industry in Bangladesh is not huge in terms of
monetary but in terms of circulation this industry is big enough.

Competitive Analysis of Online Newspaper Companies

The online newspaper industry and news presenting practice in Bangladesh is little
bit different than the newspapers that are doing business in developed countries. In
Bangladesh if we categorize newspaper considering the readers then it will give an
Politics
effortless understanding. There are mainly two types of news reader in Bangladesh.
As we know International
the whole political situation is influenced by two major political
parties. So news readers are also classified as the adherent of the political parties.
There are companies who publish news in favor of their preferred political party.
Editorial

Domestic Sports
There are also companies who are presenting quality news, which is, presenting
news without being politically biased or influenced. So competition among the
newspapers in Bangladesh is not with all the newspaper companies in Bangladesh.
The competition is mostly driven by the target market that the newspaper
companies have set. Based on the target market the product is designed. But yet
there are lots of similarities in designing the product.

According to design newspaper companies try to publish their news online only
because of achieving customer satisfaction. These are the issues that people from
different groups and ages try to have online. That is why the companies are trying
presenting their news according to public wish to get them satisfied.

All the newspapers in Bangladesh have the same product design that is divided into
five sections. Within this design structure competition is going in 3 sections and
these are politics, domestics and editorial section of the newspaper. The political
section of the newspaper deals with the current political news in the country. Here
the newspapers are doing business on their target market. Readers who are
supporting a particular political party will go for the newspaper that is presenting
news regarding their preferred party. In the area of domestic news competition
goes through how much news is covered by that news paper. So here competitive
advantage can be gained as much as one newspaper can present. Finally in the
editorial section competition is based on the columnist. The writers of this section
are intellectuals and renowned person in Bangladesh and livers in abroad.
Columnist who has good perception in peoples’ mind will have greater
acceptability. Here the competition goes around the efficient key personnel. This is
the pattern of competition within the frame work of product design that is similar
to almost every newspaper companies. Beyond this, product innovation plays an
important role in gaining competitive advantage over the rivals.

Here product innovation is like- offering new product along with the existing one.
And it creates a different impression to the readers for the product and gets the
popularity of the newspaper. For example, there is one most popular newspaper in
Bangladesh named “DAINIK PROTHOM ALO”. If we take a close look in the
way of presenting their online news we can find that they are presenting different
new product in the form of product innovation going beyond the traditional
presentation of news. There are weekly magazines full of jokes, stories, criticism
included with the regular news paper. There are special features regarding fashion,
cooking, and extra-curricular activities every week. They provides special edition
for their news paper in different religious and cultural festivals. These are the
attributes that has given competitive advantage to “DAINIK PROTHOM ALO”.

Readership According to Our Survey

In Bangladesh there are 201 dailies and 451 weeklies. Habit of reading online
newspaper is increasing among the literate people. Readership of newspaper was
very low in Bangladesh. Percentage of readership was 26 %( national media survey
2009). There is a positive relation between educations, possession of wealth and
readership of online newspaper. From the field survey we have gathered the
following data:

Readership at different age groups in Dhaka city:

Age Read Don’t Read Occasionally Total

Read

16-20 - 2 - 2

21-25 1 - 1 2

26-30 2 1 1 4

31-35 3 - - 3

36-40 2 - - 2

41-45 2 - - 2

TOTAL 10 3 2 15

Table shows the result that we have got from survey which depicts the
characteristics of readership at different age level. The survey was done with the
readers of different age group based in Dhaka city.

Even on the basis of preferences we have found an average percentage of readers

according to our findings:

Types of News Percentage of Preferences

Political 20

Sports 34

International 18
Entertainment 28

Total 100

People mostly prefer to read sports news in the online newspaper in Bangladesh. It
has got the highest preference among the readers that we have surveyed. Then
gradually come entertainment, political and international affairs. Our survey shows
34% preferred to read sports news, 28% readers like entertainment news, 20
prefers political and the rest 18 percent like the international affair related news.

Most of the readers are interested to read city news specifically but currently they
don’t get this news in existing newspapers. Since our research is concentrated on
the satisfaction of online newspaper readership in Bangladesh we tried to focus on
some points to find out the chance of getting popularity of online newspaper.
Online newspaper is mainly published targeting the commuters in countries where
online newspaper has got the popularity.
Recommendation
Conclusion
Appendix