Radio has overtaken social networks as UK teens’ preferred news source, and continues to beat newspapers and TV in a recent survey.
The poll, carried out by the youth writing community Movellas.com, asked UK teenagers how they ‘read all about it’.
When asked to express their opinion on ‘the best ways to keep up with the news’, 61% of teenagers polled said radio was their preferred choice, closely followed by 58% who selected television news. Unsurprising for a digital generation, social networks Twitter and Facebook followed at 56% and 52% respectively, with printed newspapers and free daily newspapers languishing at 26% and 22%.
When asked ‘how do you judge what news is important?’ less than half (40%) were influenced by a news story being on the front page of a newspaper, with 57% stating they were more influenced by whether friends started talking about it or if a story went viral on social networks (54%). And when it came to the value of journalism, 57% valued getting their news ‘straight away off Twitter’ above reading a journalist’s evaluation of the news (43%), with 35% also believing that direct and ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’ news was more trustworthy.
And when it comes to the best way to become a journalist, teens were split 48% to 52% in favour of starting their own blog and doing it for themselves as opposed to following the traditional work experience route at a newspaper or magazine.
Commenting on the results of the poll, Movellas.com founder, Per Larsen, said: “What this survey shows is that newspapers don’t reflect the way young people engage with the news. For them it’s about immediacy, the ability to share and ‘link’ and the opportunity to actively comment on the news. Newspapers and magazines simply don’t give young people that freedom or opportunity – and as a result their days are numbered.
“It’s also about relevance, and I suspect that the success of radio news is down to the skill of stations in catering for their target demographic, and by combining music, entertainment news and relevant current affairs, broadcast formats like BBC Radio One’s ‘Newsbeat’ make listening to the news an attractive prospect for young people.”
Posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2012 at 11:20 am by RadioToday UK