Consumer Attitudes toward News Delivering: An Experimental Evaluation of the Use and Efficacy of Personalized Recommendations

This paper presents an experiment on newsreaders’ behavior and preferences on the interaction with online personalized news. Different recommendation approaches, based on consumption profiles and user location, and the impact of personalized news on several aspects of consumer decision-making are examined on a group of volunteers. Results show a significant preference for reading recommended news over other news presented on the screen, regardless of the chosen editorial layout. In addition, the study also provides support for the creation of profiles taking into consideration the evolution of user’s interests. The proposed solution is valid for users with different reading habits and can be successfully applied even to users with small consumption history. Our findings can be used by news providers to improve online services, thus increasing readers’ perceived satisfaction.Paula Viana and Márcio Soares were partial supported by Project “TEC4Growth—Pervasive Intelligence, Enhancers and Proofs of Concept with Industrial Impact/NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000020”, under Research Line FourEyes, financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Paula Viana has also been supported by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, within project UIDB/50014/2020. Rita Gaio was partially supported by CMUP, which is Financed by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the project with the reference UIDB/00144/2020. Amílcar Correia was partially supported by the Project Pglobal (Nr. 2014/38592-Programa Operacional Temático Factores de Competitividade/Programa Operacional do Norte, Funded by ERDF).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio