Weekday and Sunday Readership Seen through Uses and Gratifications

The difference between Sunday newspaper circulation levels and weekday circulation' has encouraged researchers to examine differences between these two newsreading behaviors as a way to explain audience orientations toward newspaper reading in general.^ Apart from certain weekday newspapers simply not printing weekend editions, explanations have included: 1) simple design differences, with Sunday newspapers larger in size and more compartmentalized into sections; 2) content differences, with Sunday newspapers more oriented toward entertainment and utilitarian information; 3) demographic differences, with Sunday newspaper readers tending to be younger; and 4) psychological differences, with Sunday itself viewed as a day of leisure suitable for enjoying the newspaper.^ In addition to these explanations, another set of explanations can be provided by uses and gratifications, a research perspective which stresses what people do with media rather than what media do to people.'* To date, research in uses and gratifications has focused on the broad medium of the newspaper itself, paying scant attention to such differences within the medium as subscribing or not subscribing, reading or not reading, and weekday or Sunday newspaper readership. This article will summarize existing uses and gratifications findings on the newspaper as a medium, and then apply those findings to more specific newspaper behaviors.