WAN report on media and youth

Below is a link to a report on the media habits of young people. The reprot was presented at the World Associaiton of Newspapers in Goteborg, Sweden.

(Note my highlighted part below. CONTENT not format is the issue. And with content comes the need for CONTEXT. But the CONTENT into CONTEXT instead of worrying what color the letters should be and what font to use.)

Bottom line:

• Young people are interested in news and see the value of being informed.
• Loyal newspaper readers are more informed, engaged and connected to community than non-readers.
• Newspapers must start earlier to establish how the brand of news emanating from newspapers is different from and superior to other media options. This strategy should be multi-platform, accentuating content, not format.
• Young people leaving home provides an important opportunity for newspapers. The study shows a significant drop in readership at this life-stage at a time when interest in news is peaking.
• Newspaper editorial content, in general, is disconnected from youth interests — and when it is about youth, it is mostly negative. Music and film top the list of interests while politics ranked in the lower than 30th.
• Social networks can be allies of newspapers, not the enemy. Social network users are more supportive of all media generally, but also show a higher increase of support for newspapers than non users.

Whole report: http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/06/04/new-research-on-media-habits-of-youth-breaks-stereotypes/