Opportunity structures for user acceptance of news recommender systems (NRS) A multi-country survey study of relationships between individual-level factors and evaluations of NRS

Digitalization of the media is often discussed in terms of effects on the user. What is often overlooked are the motivations from users, on the individual level, for the acceptance of new technologies. This study explores what individual-level factors make up favorable opportunity structures for the implementation of news recommender systems (NRS). We conduct a cross-sectional survey (n = 5073) in five countries (The Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to analyze the correlations between users’ individual-level factors and their evaluations of NRS in terms of benefits and concerns. Our findings demonstrate universally critical evaluations of NRS and less-than-ideal conditions for the acceptance of NRS. We also show that while there are patterns of country differences, the perceived concerns of NRS are stronger overall and largely universal. Implications of these findings suggest a slow and intentional development and implementation of NRS rather than keeping pace with the fast development of technology.