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July 17, 2007
We Are What We Repeatedly Do
The Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University released a study last week on media consumption patterns of American teens, young adults and older adults, titled “Young People and News.” The report is an invaluable guide to those of us in the PR business, trying to reach readers and viewers with our clients’ stories.
Here are a few of the important conclusions from the special report:
1) Wide Generational Gap-Media consumption patterns are now determined by age and education, not by education alone. According to the report, “age and education are now equally powerful predictors of respondents’ news exposure. Studies of only a few decades ago showed that education was highly correlated with news use whereas age was not.” A third to 60% of teens and a fourth to 50% of young adults pay little or no attention to daily news coverage.
2) Division of Attention—In prior periods, people who “followed the news in one medium were more likely to follow it elsewhere. (Now) the level of citizens’ attention to news in one medium is a weak predictor of how much news they will obtain from other media.” There is now a “division of attention” among various media, so that consumers of news “if they have an interest will find a television or Internet outlet for it but not necessarily both. The news has its place…and mediums, too, have their place or no place. A person might read the newspaper for public affairs coverage, watch television for entertainment or a dozen other content and medium combinations.”
3) Less Recall—Only 40% of respondents who “claimed exposure to a story actually knew the factual element (with guessing taken into account). Older respondents were more aware of both soft and hard news stories but the gap is larger on hard news. Among teens, awareness of hard news stories was “a whopping thirty percentage points below that of older adults and 17 points below on soft news stories.”
4) Source of News— The number one medium for all three age groups for “first seeing the news story” is television, with radio and newspaper lagging badly. Local newscasts and cable news networks were the most important sources for older adults on “first to see news”, with substantial drop-off in younger generations. The websites of national news organizations score highest among teens and young adults on this metric. Twenty eight percent of teens said they first were exposed to a story by hearing about it from another person, compared to 12% for young adults and 4% for older adults (Note: this confirms power of person like yourself in the Edelman Trust Barometer as the single most credible source of information in most countries).
5) Frequency and Depth of Exposure—Teens are exposed much less often to mainstream media of all types than older adults and somewhat less exposed than young adults. For example, 57% of older adults watch national TV news every day versus 31% of teens. Teen consumption patterns also differ in depth of exposure, with only 33% watching most or all of a local TV newscast, versus the 64% of older adults who watch all or most of the local newscast.
Here are a few thoughts on how this study bears on the world of PR. Our job is to earn reader/viewer exposure to news. It is clear that we will have to tell our stories differently, incorporating video, adapting to a more short-form style. The change must be in more than format; our stories will have to embrace larger trends (note success of our work for Trojan, the condom makers, who seek to change the conversation about sex in the US). We will have to go new gathering places such as MySpace to inform the hubs of discussion, providing the option to engage, not just receive information.
We cannot afford to have “media simply reinforce existing interests rather than create new ones.” We need an educated and involved populace for a vital democratic system in which free enterprise prospers. The report concludes with a quote from Aristotle’s Ethos, “We are what we repeatedly do.” We have to win back the next generation to media with compelling content, ease of use and a voice in the outcome.
Posted by Edelman at July 17, 2007 2:09 PM
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Comments
Richard,
Brands will face an increasing challenge in the future to reach this new media fragmented generation. Anyone in the industry (or who is a parent like I am) has had a front row seat to the continuing disconnection between current events / daily news consumption and the next generation. I'm actually a bit surprised the number of teens watching TV newscasts is still over 30%, as stated in the study. This issue obviously has bigger implications for our society beyond just media consumption trends. Thanks for the overview.
Posted by: Mike Spataro at July 17, 2007 11:14 PM