The correlation of usability, familiarity, satisfaction and reputation with the loyalty of student users of news websites

Abstract

In a time of increasing competition in online news, it is important for the publishers of news websites to retain loyal users. This paper contributes to the study of loyalty through an investigation of the factors that affect the loyalty of young users of news websites and motivate them to return there. The research sample in this study was made up of students (N=408) at universities in Slovakia who use news websites to search for information every day. Correlation and regression analyses have been used to test the hypotheses. The results of this research confirm that usability, familiarity, satisfaction and reputation have a direct and positive relationship to the users’ loyalty as reflected in daily use of a news website. The correlation shows that loyalty is associated particularly closely with reputation and satisfaction with a selected news website. Regression analysis shows that there are also other variables that affect users’ loyalty.