Young People and News Consumption

[Writer's name]

[Name of Institution]

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Over the years, pundits in the world of journalism and intellectual circles have been predicting that the trend of newspaper reading would diminish with the passage of time, as more and more people like to switch to the electronic media for staying updated with the latest news from across the globe. However, studies have shown that young people usually do not read newspapers because they are not interested in the news, regardless of the method of the delivery of the news. (Editorsweblog.org, 2010).

According to a survey by Harvard, only one teen among 20 teenagers and only one young adult reads a newspaper on a daily basis. As far as reading the newspaper online is concerned, a study conducted in 2008 revealed that around 64 percent of young people read newspaper online within a period of a year. This figure further dropped in the succeeding year (Joan Shorenstein Center, 2009). This clearly reveals that young people do not read newspapers as they like to stay updated to news through other media of mass communication.

Literature Review

According to another study, it has been revealed that young people are nowadays more inclined toward staying updated through online newspaper websites than ever before. According the figures by Nielsen, there had been 11 % rise in the number of young people (within the age bracket of 18-24 years) to be accessing the BBC News website in the United Kingdom. The top three websites in Britain reveal that the number of visitors of the same age group (i.e. 18 -24) has increased over the years. According to Nielsen, newspaper websites are now making their news content more appealing and the way they have started covering the news stories has changed.(The Independent, 2011)

Also, most online newspaper websites ...