As digital news consumption shifts from platform-based to format-based selection, long-form and short-form news have emerged as distinct formats co-existing within the same platform, YouTube.
However, little research has examined how these two formats...
As digital news consumption shifts from platform-based to format-based selection, long-form and short-form news have emerged as distinct formats co-existing within the same platform, YouTube.
However, little research has examined how these two formats compete for and complement users' gratification resources within a single platform. To address this gap, this study applies niche theory and uses and gratifications theory to investigate the functional differentiation and niche relations between long-form and short-form news.
Data were collected through an online survey of 360 adults who regularly consume both long-form and short-form news on broadcaster-operated YouTube channels. Nine gratification resources across four dimensions—cognitive, affective, format-specific, and gratification opportunity—were measured. Niche breadth, niche overlap, and competitive superiority were analyzed, followed by Pearson correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses.
The results indicate that long-form and short-form news occupy functionally differentiated niches within the same platform. Long-form news demonstrated competitive superiority in content-value resources, including informativeness, credibility, diversity, and personalization, whereas short-form news showed superiority in format-efficiency resources, including accessibility, conciseness, and immediate immersion. Rather than perceiving the two formats as substitutes,
users regarded them as complementary, with complementarity showing the highest mean score. In addition, the conciseness and accessibility of short-form news significantly strengthened perceptions of complementarity and inflow, while the credibility of long-form news reduced perceptions of substitutability.
Only substitutability significantly predicted a future preference for short-form news, whereas complementarity and inflow perceptions were associated with
the continued parallel use of both formats. This study extends the unit of niche analysis from media and platforms to content formats within a single platform, thereby expanding the theoretical applicability of niche theory. It also provides empirical evidence that the structural characteristics of news formats
shape users' gratification experiences even when the news content is identical. The findings suggest that long-form and short-form news on YouTube function as complementary rather than competing formats, and that maintaining the credibility of long-form news is essential for sustaining their co-existence within the digital news ecosystem.