Internet and Newspapers in Youngsters’ Daily Lives

Seija Nurmi, Centre for Communication Studies, United Kingdom

Young people have grown up with computers and have incorporated the internet into their daily routines.

"Online life is not monochromatic. The internet has become a part of everyday life, rather than a separate place to be," said Seija Nurmi.

Internet usage changes in the course of time, and "the longer experience one has with it, the longer time one spends on it," he said. What begins as something for "a bit of fun" becomes of a tool for research, something more diversified. And there are many, many varieties of internet users - from the "enthusiasts" for whom the web it vital, through "internet utilisers" and "occasional users", to "traditionals" who hardly use the internet at all.

And news is one of the main objectives of internet users. Studies in many countries are showing that the internet becoming a major source of news in many markets - in some cases passing newspapers and magazines as a primary news source.

Ms Nurmi offered several conclusions. Among them:

  Young people are less loyal to particular channels and most likely to change their behaviour.

  Information seeking is the biggest threat for newspapers and magazines.

  People are used to getting free information from the internet. If online papers become chargeable on a larger scale, the whole picture will change.

How Effective is Newspapers in Education?

Jim Abbot, Vice President, Newspaper Association of America Foundation, USA

Newspapers in Education programmes are reaching 40 percent of all students in America, says Mr Abbot. But what is the impact of using newspapers in the schools?

The NAA foundation studied schools in 22 cities from around the country to determine if students that used newspapers in their classrooms were learning to read and do math better.

"In all 22 cities that we surveyed we learned that in schools where the newspaper was used as a teaching tool on a regular basis, the students scored, on average, 10 percent better on their tests than did the students who did not use newspapers," said Mr Abbot.

"The data we gathered does not prove that the newspaper was the only reason that scores may have increased. What we can say, with some certainty, is that using the newspaper in class appears to be at least one factor in helping students learn better."

Newspaper Coverage of the Young

Magne Raundalen, Director of Research for Children’s Programmes, Centre for Crisis Psychology, Norway

A new global study of newspaper coverage of children finds that nearly one-third of the articles about them concern children as victims.

That was by far the largest category of stories about children in the study, in which the researchers were children themselves; 70 classes from 24 countries studied newspapers daily for one week in late March and early April and categorised all the news articles they found about children.

Children were portrayed as victims in nearly one in three of the stories examined. The second largest category was "children in schools," which included one in five stories.

Other categories included "children are brilliant", with 17 percent of the stories, followed by "children in politics" (10 percent), "children as wrongdoers" (8 percent), and "children helping others" (4 percent).

More about the study by clicking here.

Going Mobile to Reach Young Readers

Takashi Ishioka, Project Manager, Asahi Shimbun Electronic Media and Broadcasting Division, Japan

It is no secret that newspaper readership among young people has been declining in many markets. "As a direct result of media diversification, lifestyles have changed and continued to shift toward other forms of media over time."

The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second largest daily with circulation of over 12 million, is pursuing new strategies to win back young readers.

One is to develop mobile-phone based activities, and perhaps The Asahi is the world’s leading newspaper in this medium.

Mr Ishioka’s presentation explained several aspects of this new mobile strategy. Among them: low price, which has allowed The Asahi Shimbun to attract 1.2 million subscribers (at the equivalent of 73 euro cents per month).

"We know that we are unable to change the lifestyle of our readers. So our approach is to familiarize users with news contents via mobile phones, with the final goal of actual newspaper subscription, which is more profitable."

Finding Funds for Newspapers in Education

Anna Pangbourne, Director, The Newspaper Education Trust, UK

Can newspapers convince other businesses and companies to help fund a newspaper project?

"The answer is - yes!", says Ms Pangbourne. "Every company in our community has a role to play in supporting education, and in particular literacy and computer skills, and as a newspaper we can lead the way in showing other companies how effective our particular media can be."

The Newspaper Education Trust is a charity based at West Ferry Printers in east London, one of the poorest boroughs in the country. It has persuaded nearly 30 local and national companies - including two national newspaper groups, The Daily Telegraph and the Guardian -- to be sponsors of a project that has given over 10,000 children the opportunity to be young journalists for the day.

Ms Pangbourne’s presentation explained how to go about it.

Taking Children Seriously

Göran Joryd, Interactive Storyteller, Expology, Norway

If you want children to understand the media business, you have to take them seriously, says Mr Joryd.

That’s what several Scandinavian publishing houses have been doing by building multimedia role playing centres, with the help of Expology, and inviting children to come and learn how news stories are collected, edited and published.

The centres, which cost between 500,000 and 1.5 million euros, are a physical environment where classes that visit the publishing houses can go into a simulated society to interview people, make phone calls, work at editorial desks and publish in different media channels.

Classes of up to 32 students come to the centres for two-and-a-half hour sessions in which they play the role of a news man or woman seeking information, participating in meetings, then publishing their stories in different media.

"Multi-media role playing takes the young seriously," he says. "You let them participate in your business to make them understand what you do for them."