New research from the World Newspaper Congress on the media habits of young people in three countries found that television continues to be their most important source of news and information for the young, despite the rise of the internet.
The research, looking at 15-29 year olds in the US, the Netherlands and Finland, showed that they received their news and information from a wide variety of sources, but that television continues to be their preferred medium.
Commenting on the research, Robert Barnard, Partner and Founder of Canada-based DECODE, said: “Young people do not seem to understand the inherent value and difference in newspaper content versus other news media. TV still dominates even in perceptions of credibility and depth of coverage.”
The study went on to show that newspaper companies are well placed to attract young readers if they are committed to the task. Looking at the content, newspapers were found to be generally disconnected from youth interests, and when reporting youth matters, the content was mostly negative.
Young people are interested in news and see the value of being informed, and therefore newspapers need to establish how news emanating from newspapers is different from and superior to other media options.
Parents, especially mothers, and teachers are successful in influencing young people to become newspaper readers, whereas peers are not thought to be as influential. However, those using social networks were deemed to be more supportive of all media generally, and are more likely to support newspapers than non-users.
A recent study from comScore showed that non-newspaper readers in the US are likely to be younger than average online news consumers, while heavy newspaper readers are more likely than average to engage with traditional print news brands online (see Heavy Online News Consumers Are Not Newspaper Readers).
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