Abstract
Criteria for the selection of media offers are constitutive for competent media use. It has been empirically proven that a more information- or entertainment-oriented selection is related to the level of education. With the inclusion of the milieu theory, an information and entertainment orientation can additionally be explained by the influence of socio-cultural user dispositions. G. Schulze's approach of "experiential rationality" is used for this purpose. However, Schulze's results leave open the way in which media serve the respective existing experience rationality, because he does not take into account the media design forms in his investigation. Using an empirical sample of his own, differences in the information and entertainment orientation of two online newspapers are recorded and related to socio-structural reader preconditions. It can be concluded that entertainment and information orientation is not only related to education, but also to milieu-specific, media-aesthetic preferences, which are served by the media form.
