How Do College Students Get Their News?
In the world we live in, college students are surrounded by electronic media constantly – phones, television, iPads, computers. The way people consume media and news stories is constantly changing as technology evolves. With the busy schedule college students tend to have, many probably don’t consume news through more classic news resources like news stations or newspapers.
According to a survey done by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute, “only 39 percent of the survey respondents said they typically actively seek out news, while 60 percent said they mostly ’bump into’ that type of content as they do other things on Facebook and other sites.”
To put this survey to the test, I ran my own poll on my Twitter feed. I asked my followers how they consume the majority of their news, and this is what they said:
- 58% of responders said they received their news through a social site like Facebook or Twitter
- 19% use news websites like CNN, MSNBC, etc.
- 8% use subscription resources like TheSkimm
- And 15% used other resources to consume their news
It’s important to note that my Twitter followers are a specific population, so there isn’t as wide of a variety of viewpoints or opinions as the NORC survey. In the survey, “70 percent of young adults surveyed say their social media feeds include a mix of viewpoints, increasing their chances of reading a wider array of content.
Overall, it seems that college students still consume a large amount of news – despite the rumors that millennials don’t care about what’s going on in the world. The increasing popularity of social media websites is offering more access to news for users. The implementation of pages on these sites like Twitter trending topics and Snapchat subscriptions and featured stories offer more opportunity for users to come in contact with news stories throughout their day browsing the internet.