MANY young people turn to the web to find out what’s happening in the world, but Charles Sturt University (CSU) research has shown they still value holding newsprint in their hands.
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As part of the study by Dr Asim Qayyum from CSU’s School of Information Studies, a small sample of regional university students aged 18-25 years were asked how they sourced their news and what value they put on different types of media.
Using CSU’s Digital Library Usability Laboratory - a special facility that allows researchers to record screen movement, key strokes and monitor eye tracking - students were asked to look for news on the web.
“This project showed that a transition to online news is happening, but that the traditional newspaper is still holding a place in society,” Dr Qayyum said.
“The current generation still talks about getting a nice feeling about holding a newspaper and reading it. Although, it’s not for serious news seeking and often the young people see reading the paper as a leisure activity.”
Dr Qayyum said the study also found young people turned to the printed newspaper for local news because papers told them what was about to happen in their communities.
“Which shows that local newspapers are doing a good job,” he said.
“Most people said that they would prefer to read an editorial opinion in the printed newspaper, a more professional opinion, rather than read an online blog, which they described as being the views of somebody on the street.
“In our study, people trusted news articles they read online as long as the website looked professional and was ranked high in Google search results.”
Dr Qayyum said young people were also reluctant to pay for their news online.
“The view expressed by many in the study was ‘Why should I have to subscribe for something that I have been getting for free?’,” he said.
“Our research was focused on desk and laptop computers, but technology has moved on with the development of better tablet computers and the proliferation of smartphones. This has made online news more accessible and is an area that needs further research.”
The research by Dr Qayyum and Dr Kirsty Williamson was carried out from 2009-2010 and has been published in the journals Information Research, Library and Information Science Research and Australian Academic and Research Libraries.
