The extent to which the internet has changed the media landscape is revealed in a survey conducted for A1 Telekom Austria by Zukunftsinstitut. According to the study of residential customers, Austrians on average spend just over three hours per day online, 11 per cent of which is via smartphones.
Among younger users, mobile phones and the Internet have long since replaced television as the dominant medium. This is demonstrated by the extremely high figures among the so-called "digital champions" (aged 29 on average and representing around 6 per cent of the total adult population), who spend 7.3 hours per day online and who also regard the Internet as their chief source of information.
The wide-ranging survey reached a number of conclusions on media use in the digital age, including the fact that what is read/seen/heard is decided by the moment, not the user's educational level. In addition, the study by Zukunftsinstitut revealed that content is becoming "fluid", in that stories are becoming detached from the medium, and active media users now participate in "telling the story". In that regard, the role of journalists has changed to one of content curation, in that they are having to filter, evaluate and edit the abundance of content available online.
