Canadian study raises questions about educational projects
Where is your NIE program?

I can’t imagine young people in Canada being much different from their counterparts in the U.S. That’s why a readership study commissioned by the Canadian Newspaper Association is interesting (make that, encouraging) reading.

Much is made about newspaper readership here in the U.S. and other media like to point out the decline of newspaper circulation. They note, and we seem to acknowledge, readership in coming years will continue to wane because the young folks aren’t going to depend on the newspaper as did their forefathers and mothers.

CNA commissioned this first-ever study as a way of measuring what young newspaper readers think, what they do and what they care about. With many commonly held perceptions about that generation, CNA wanted to find out what was reality, what was myth.

The result makes for interesting reading: “Reading Between the Lines: Debunking Common Myths about Young Newspaper Readers.”

I’m going to paraphrase some of the results and in other parts quote directly from the study. And if you’ve made it this far and want to read no further, then at least read the last few graphs after the starline.

The study was done in April, 2006, with 1500 respondents between ages 14 and 34. It was done online and took each respondent about 25 minutes to complete. And it was offered in English and French, meaning the results were weighted for national and regional representation. The results are considered accurate within 2.6 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 out of 20 times.

Want to learn more about the Canadian study? Check out this web site: www.can.acj.ca

Myth #1 ­ “Young People are Disengaged and Apathetic”

Only 11 percent of the respondents say they are not engaged in civic engagement (voting, volunteering, social activism). Yet 34 percent of daily newspaper readers consider themselves highly engaged.

We might think that generation is a little more removed from voting, at least that seems to be an attitude of many of us in older generations. Yet the young newspaper readers in Canada showed that 78 percent of eligible daily readers voted in the last Canadian election.

Myth #2 - “Young Readers are Introverted and Marginalized”

We might stereotype that generation as being removed or disassociated but in reality the study shows young newspaper readers are outgoing, are more socially active, shop more frequently, consume more fast food and are more likely to visit restaurants, bars and night clubs than infrequent readers.

Myth #3 - “Traditional Media have no Appeal for Young People as a Source of News and Information. Newspapers in Particular are seen as Old-Fashioned and Not Appealing”

Asked to rate eight sources of information on “issues that are important to you,” the respondents ranked newspapers as the second most valuable media source of information. TV was first with 41 percent, newspapers second at 32, radio and news websites both were at 22 percent. At the bottom was weblogs, or “blogs” as we know them.

A couple of interesting notes go with this “myth.” More than 91 percent disagreed with the statement that “newspapers are for old people.” But 62 percent in the 14 to 19 age range said they would read newspapers more often if the content was “more edgy and less conservative.”

And while Canadian youth value online news sources, including newspaper websites more than newspapers themselves, newspapers rate higher in credibility, trust, level or writing and quality of reporting. And they rated trust and credibility as the most important criteria for any news/information source.

Myth #4 - “Young Readers are Techno ‘Dummies’ and Behind the Times”

Computer usage between daily readers and infrequent readers is slightly appreciable but the margin widens on internet usage and even more on e-mail usage. And there’s a very pronounced “divergence” on cell phone use. Of the daily readers, 53 percent use a mobile phone to only 32 percent of the infrequent users.

Daily readers are more likely to access news and information online than their infrequent counterparts and are more likely (60 percent to 37 percent) to read a newspaper online.

Myth #5 - “Young People Don’t Read the Newspaper for News”

Some of the results here mirror what we used to find in readership studies done by KPA. The front page is highly read, local news rates very high and sports has declined. But that’s a gender situation. While overall, the CNA study showed 28 percent of the respondents read the sports section, 46 percent of the males turn to the sports pages.

Myth #6 - “Young People will pick up the Habit of Newspaper Reading when they get older, just like the Previous Generation”

Actually, the study showed that newspaper readership increases more in the 14 to 19 year age range (58 percent) to only 26 percent in the 30 to 34 age range.

So that seems to say we really need to get to the younger generation at an earlier age.

And this leads me to the key reason for writing about this study.

Part of it is obvious and reminds me of a frequently seen bumper sticker “Kids Will Be What Kids See.” If kids see their parents reading the newspaper in the home, they may be more likely to pick up the habit.

But as important, if not moreso, is the fact that “newspapers in schools have a significant impact on forming newspaper reading habits in these critical years.”

Sixty-six percent of the daily newspaper readers in the study said newspapers were an educational tool in their high school and 41 percent said newspapers were used similarly in their elementary school years.

•••••

Many of you reading this don’t have a presence in elementary schools, or even high schools. You don’t have a Newspaper in Education program, you don’t publish the chapter series projects furnished to you at no cost by KPA.

So what’s stopping you? If you think the younger generation in Canada is really no different than the younger generation in your community, “debunking” that last myth should more than convince you it’s time. It’s time to find a way to expose school-age kids in your community to the value of newspapers. Specifically, to the value of your newspaper.

Sure it costs but there are sponsorship opportunities at the local level to get the copies of those newspapers paid for. You just have to be convinced and then be convincing to those businesses. And yes, you give them the credit on your pages for being an NIE sponsor. Yet in the long run, it will be you who gets the credit.

And if you don’t believe it, just try the upcoming chapter series Tails from the Bluegrass II. Better yet, be convinced now. Contact one of the newspapers around you who published the series last fall and see what the teachers, the students and even the parents had to say about the project.

There are plenty of stories about last year’s success, from any of the 84 newspapers who published Tails from the Bluegrass I, or the 935,000 readers each week.

If that doesn’t convince you to participate, if that doesn’t convince you that an NIE program is worth the effort, the time, the cost, then nothing will.

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