• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.177-195
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• 2017

Traditionally, news was consumed only through printed newspapers and broadcasting media, such as radio and television. However, the Internet has enabled people to consume news content online. Since most of online news content has been provided for free, it is not easy for news providers to charge the fixed subscription fee for online news content. Therefore, as an alternative strategy, some online news providers have tried to adopt the Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) pricing model, which allows users (readers) to pay as much as they want after consuming news content. As this pricing model shows some possibility to grow and replace the unsuccessful monetization strategy of online news content, we therefore examined the comparative importance of seven heuristic attributes (i.e., article evaluation, article share, article comment, article information design, article length, writer SNS, and writer information) affecting readers' voluntary payment behavior through a conjoint analysis with 379 news articles collected from online news Website (i.e., Ohmynews.com) where the PWYW model has been working successfully. This study found that article share and article length are the most important factors which affect online news content users' voluntary payment. Finally, two major and eight minor propositions are suggested based on the findings of the study. This study would suggest guidelines for how to create online news content which induces much more voluntary payment.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1-17
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• 2013

As online communities proliferate, online news sites have received great attention in news media research. Although most of the online news sites provide contents for free, some have adopted the Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) model by offering a voluntary payment option to the readers. In this study, we investigate the factors which influence subscribers' voluntary payment behavior on an online news site. Drawing upon both the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), we hypothesize that appreciation has a direct effect on the subscribers' voluntary payment behavior, whereas central factors (positive emotional content, cognitive content) and peripheral factors (news sharing, news article length) of the news articles have indirect impacts on voluntary payment behavior through the enhanced appreciation. Based on an empirical analysis of 172 news articles from the Korean online news site that adopted the PWYW pricing model (i.e., Ohmynews.com), we find that appreciation plays a critical role in voluntary payment behavior and that peripheral factors have significant impacts on appreciation. However, the impacts of central factors on appreciation are not found. By identifying influencing factors of subscribers' voluntary payment behavior on online news sites for the first time, this paper suggests a prospective alternative profit model for online news providers faced with fierce competition.