Survey: Youth, Parents Define News Similarly
This directly from a full “Future of the First Amendment” follow-up survey, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation:
More students are turning to the Internet to find their news. Their definition of news isn’t much different than that of their parents.
Currently, 25% of students say they get news and information “everyday” from online and Internet sources, and another 28% say they get news and information this way at least several times per week. An additional 20 % of students say they get news and information from the Internet about once per week. Thus, 72% of all high school students use the Internet at least once a week to get news and information.
These figures represent a large jump in student uses of the Internet for getting news and information. A year ago, 31% of students reported using the Internet for getting news and information at least several times a week, while 53% report that level of use today.
Currently, 39% of students watch videos on web sites, such as Youtube and Google video, at least several times per week; 28% participate in online discussions at least several times a week; 23% post messages to online columns that often; 17% get news from blogs; and 15% use mobile devices, such as cell phones and BlackBerries, to get news and information at least several times per week.
Generally, students can distinguish between important news and interesting news. Students, teachers and parents were presented with five specific stories that were running in the news at the time this survey was conducted. For each story they were asked how important they thought it was as a news story and how interested they were in each story. The first graphic below shows the percentage saying the story was either “very” or “extremely” important, and the second shows the percentage saying they were “very” or “extremely” interested in it:
September 20th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
[...] Future of the First Amendment survey is available for review, critique, lambasting and lauding. H/t PJNet.org which summarizes with the gist that kids get their news from online sources and what they consider [...]