Young adults and everyday-life information: The role of news media

Abstract

There is a paucity of research examining the everyday-life information seeking of young people, especially investigating the role that the news media has in providing information to young people for use in their everyday lives. A qualitative, interpretivist approach is adopted, involving 34 students, ages 18 to 25, from an Australian university. First, 20 students were interviewed about their news seeking (including topics and sources). Then 14 students participated in verbal protocol analysis, which involved a series of tasks concerning online and print newspapers. Lastly, students were interviewed about how they sought everyday-life information and whether they thought that they had incidentally acquired or encountered information on everyday-life topics in online or print newspapers in the recent past. Findings indicated that, contrary to expectations, traditional print media still played a role for young people, and social media were perceived as important for communication with friends, rather than for news gathering. Purposeful information seeking was more likely to occur online, but both print and online newspapers retained an incidental role in providing information to students for their everyday lives. Participants used a range of media to suit their particular needs and purposes. Thus, access to a wide variety of sources is important for everyday-life information seeking (ELIS) by young people.

Influence of Social Broadcasting Networks on News Consumption

“…Users on SBNs are influenced by celebrities, experts and leaders, as that (i) increases the users' reputation in social and professional networks (Kane et al 2014) (ii) provides indirect connections, which are not possible in offline environments, and (iii) keeps users informed of CELs personal, social and professional lives in real time. A study by Williamson et al (2012) on young users' news activities on Facebook finds that users prefer personal news in the form of information posted by friends or through status updates and reporting issues and events in real time (e.g. Facebook status update -Raining heavy, homes likely flooded).…”

“…Facebook status update -Raining heavy, homes likely flooded). A respondent in the study by Williamson et al (2012) says, "I suppose from blogs and Facebook and all those sorts of things, I get personal news, that I find out from other people" (Williamson et al 2012, p. 262). Based on the above, this study hypothesizes the relationship between user influence in SBNs and continuance of news consumption in the network as Hypothesis 2a: User Influence in a social broadcasting network will lead to greater continuance of news consumption in the network.…”

“…Prior studies on news media have described its influence on society and public opinion as well as powerful behavioural, cognitive, emotional and attitudinal effects on news consumers. A study by Williamson et al (2012) on the role of news media and young adults finds that people prefer several sources for news and still find printed newspapers having high information credibility. News firms also permit their employees (e.g.…”

“…television, online news website). Rather, they traverse through diverse online news sources and different SBNs Williamson et al 2012) expecting and demanding news in fast, convenient and smart ways consummate with a deep social and human touch. By amalgamating computing, communication and connectivity technologies (Bharadwaj, El Sawy, Pavlou, & Venkatraman, 2013;Oestreicher-Singer & Zalmanson, 2013), SBNs have deeply impacted news consumption by creating novel ways for communicating and creating newsworthy information (Bruns, Highfield, & Ann Lind, 2012;Pentina & Tarafdar, 2014).…”

Linking Everyday Information Behaviour and Asian Immigrant Settlement Processes: Towards a Conceptual Framework

“…It was found that younger students, undergraduates and people with more extroverted personalities tended to use these sites more frequently. Another study, conducted by Williamson, Qayyum, Hider, and Liu (2012), discussed the role of new media in young adults' (18 -25 years old) everyday life information-seeking behaviour. These findings showed that traditional print media was still an important source of information and social media was used to communicate with others rather than to seek information.…”