Media events in an age of “cross-media”: a smartphone diary app study Azi Lev-On and Hila Lowenstein-Barkai School of Communication, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel Abstract Purpose – Aiming to explore how audience consume and produce media events in the digital, distributed and social era we live in, the paper analyzes the viewing patterns of video news items during a media event (the week of Donald Trump’s presidential visit to Israel, the first to a country outside the US), compared to a parallel comparable “ordinary” period (two weeks later, in which no inordinacy events occurred). The comparison focused on simultaneous activities of audiences engaged with the event, with either related (i.e. second screening) or unrelated (i.e. media multitasking). Design/methodology/approach – The research is a diary study based on a dedicated mobile app in which respondents reported their news-related behavior during two periods: a media event period and comparable “ordinary” period. Findings – Participants reported watching significantly more news video items in the first day of the media event week compared to the first day of the “ordinary” week. More than half of the viewing reports of the media event were not on TV. In the media event week, there were significantly higher percentages of viewing reports on smartphones/computers and significantly higher percentages of second-screening reports. Originality/value – This is the first study that empirically explores the viewing patterns of video news items during a media event, compared to an “ordinary” period, focusing on media second screening of audiences engaged with the event. This comparison may reveal whether (1) media events still retain their centrality in a multi-screen era and (2) the role of the internet and online social media in the experience of media events. Keywords Media events, Second screening, Media multitasking, Mobile diary, ESM Paper type Research paper Introduction The digitization, information and communication revolutions we experience in the past few decades have introduced new opportunities for consuming video content. New media technologies have altered and transformed the television viewing experience, with an ever- growing variation of platforms, devices and services to choose from (Napoli, 2012; Papathanassopoulos et al., 2013; Van Aelst et al., 2017; Westlund and F€ ardigh 2015). Moreover, in today’s “cross-media” environment (Bjur et al., 2014), content is not only delivered on different platforms, but also in different modalities (e.g. social media) that enable audiences to participate in the process of distributing, contextualizing and creating content on their own (Kim and Schwarze, 2021). These changes are especially relevant to the news genre where the immediacy of information dissemination is of great importance, as immediacy is a significant predictor to online news adoption (Giglietto and Selva, 2014; Omar et al., 2021). Contemporary media audiences have considerable access to news from anywhere, anytime and in a wide range of media (Cha, 2016; Bjur et al., 2014). Due to the short length of news items, and the fact that they do not require extended attentional focus, and their high relevance to the daily life of many publics, the genre is also a leading candidate to performing simultaneous media activities Media events in an age of “cross-media” The study was supported by the Institute for the Study of New Media, Society and Politics in Ariel University. The authors thank Inbal Laks-Freund for her assistance in planning the experiment and preparing the manuscript for publication. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1468-4527.htm Received 27 November 2021 Revised 19 July 2022 16 May 2023 Accepted 29 August 2023 Online Information Review © Emerald Publishing Limited 1468-4527 DOI 10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0593