That Pew Study Doesn't Tell Whole Story on Younger Readers

By: Maegan Carberry Defenders of the millennial generation?s civic engagement had some explaining to do last week after a recent Pew study indicated that a third of us don?t seek out any news on a typical day, including online media. As E&P reported when the data was released, this statistic undercuts a common argument that millennials are not turned off, they just get their news from non-traditional outlets beyond print and broadcast media.

Greg Mitchell and I had an interesting email discussion about the findings, and he argued that younger people may think they are getting the news because they are so well connected, but they don?t really seek it out and are badly mistaken in presuming that they are getting adequate news that will be important to their (our) futures.

I agreed with him to some extent, since I begrudgingly acknowledge that Stephen Colbert doesn?t technically count as a credible news source. Still, the findings didn?t jibe with my real life experience, and I had a hunch that the explanation might be that newspaper companies? version of online media is a MSM experience to most millennials, especially on the younger end.

At the latest gathering of my Netsquared Meetup group of new media dorks in Los Angeles, our guest speaker delivered a presentation on how most younger millennials see email and two-dimensional web pages as dinosaur tools used only by their parents. Facebook, instant messaging and text messages are the forum of choice, and as I?ve noted in previous columns this all falls under the umbrella of news as a collective consersation, where compelling information converges with entertainment and activism that is facillitated by a small group of opinion-leaders in an individual?s social network.

My former Medill School of Journalism classmate, Matt Weber, is now completing his doctoral research on patterns of online news and information consumption at USC?s Anneberg School for Communication. Matt studies news consumption across multiple platforms in the U.S. and abroad, and he was not surprised by the findings, but said they didn?t tell the whole story.

?When you look at the way the Pew study is framed, it primarily focuses on the use of newspapers, online news sites and more traditional media,? he said. ?Although the survey has modernized in recent years, it still uses a conservative definition of what news is. Does a 45-year-old male consider a YouTube parody of McCain and Obama?s stances on the conflict in Georgia to be news? Probably not. But high-school students increasingly engage with and learn about world events from this type of media. Youth share these stories and videos via social networking sites, and these sites become tools for sharing news.?

Matt?s observations made sense to me, but the Pew study also said that interactions on social networks "are very popular with young people, but they have not become a major source of news. Just 10% of those with social networking profiles say they regularly get news from these sites."

However, this finding needs more context, specifically with respect to the role of opinion-leaders in social networks. Light news consumers may not be seeking out news in their social networks, but they get it by Web 2.0 Osmosis. In my own Facebook network, I?d say about 10 percent of my friends are actively posting links to stories, YouTube videos, podcasts or photo albums that incorporate some sort of news-driven element. In fact, I?ve come to think of one pal in particular as my personal wire service: He?s plugged into every political and entertainment event in town and receiving updates through his filter is way more valuable to me because they come with his savvy, like-minded endorsement.

Reading such updates, to Greg?s point, may be a false positive, but it is a form of knowledge-sharing nonetheless that often results in civic participation. Even my most apolitical friend who works in marketing at a major daily newspaper and still only reads its website ?when he?s bored? sent me a Blackberry chat message the other day to say that he registered to vote in the presidential election because he realized how important it is after repeatedly seeing all of my activism efforts on Facebook. (Interestingly, he also says that he definitely thinks he?ll consume more news when he?s older and settled down, probably on TV.)

The fact is, technology is evolving faster than we can master it. These rogue, untrackable millennial eyeballs might also explain another piece of news that caught my eye this week: a Nielsen report that nearly half of the top 30 newspaper sites experienced a decline in time spent on their sites in the last year. I suspect it?s because instead of seeking information directly from a traditionally established, trusted news brand, consumers are stumbling across the content from their preferred aggregator sites and social networks.

For those interested in some additional research on this subject, Matt recommended comparing the Pew findings with data from the Newspaper Association of America?s report on the transition of news to mobile devices, which can be found at www.naa.org/mobile. He also suggested two Forrester Research studies ? Jennings 2008 and Golvin 2006 ? which I can share with you if you email me.

In any case -- email me with feedback on this column and the whole topic of the new New Journalism. I'm at: maegan.carberry@gmail.com. Below you find a couple of comments received last week.
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Maegan, Most newspapers have large and growing audiences online but cannot make enough money to replace lost subscriptions and print ad sales. Show newspapers how to make money online and you will have something. Till then: thoughtful but empty rhetoric on your part. But thanks for trying.

John K. Hartman, professor of journalism, Central Mich. U.
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I read the new column. A pointed perspective, indeed.

I know at my shop, the 30-year-veteran chief editor can't stand the untrained professionals. No surprise, right? He hates the two local bloggers because most of what they do is link to my shop's stories and then "blather" on about them. Not a lot of original content.

Then again, we're still waiting on corporate to be allowed to break out our own blogs. And video's tough to do when you've only got one photog/videographer able to edit things up.

I ask you, how much professionalism should rub off on the untrained? How much should we be willing to let go of our professionalism to act more like the blogs? My feeling is that it must go both ways, somehow, but I'm not sitting on the pulse of the blogosphere (such a silly word).

Bloggers keep the news industry honest, or at least purport to. Their success rate varies, which is OK. Online communities ... I'm leery about them, mostly because I've been a part of a couple. Online communities are full of island politics and navelgazing. I don't know how many of them actually unify behind a single purpose and accomplish something, or hold anyone accountable.

Thanks again. Good luck on the column.

-- Jake