It’s no secret that college students are increasingly unplugged from news, but a study finds that when made aware of an interesting story, they prefer to verify it online through sites like Drudge Report.
“Of all the ways [students] get their news seems to indicate that they prefer nontraditional outlets, Drudge Report, Huffington Post, podcasts, to any other form,” said the survey of 417 college students and their use of mobile technology published in the scholarly journal Electronic News.
The June survey, provided to Secrets, found that a driving factor is that students trust sites run by those they know, or feel they know, and who they consider part of their online media family. The survey sits behind a paywall.
The study is bad news for big outfits including Fox and the New York Times. “Participants prefer to get their social media news from individuals, journalists, friends they know, people they’ve heard of, rather than organizations, even if they are established news organizations,” the study said.
It is titled “Students and Social News: How College Students Share News Through Social Media,” and co-authored by scholars from Suffolk University, East Carolina University and the University of Central Florida.
It found that the plugged in generation isn’t using their smart phones “with the intent of becoming better informed citizens.” And they don’t use them primarily to get news.
But since they are likely to have their Facebook, Twitter or other apps open, “the news just happens to find them.”
The study concluded that “while students may not be actively seeking out news and information through social media, they are willing to have it sent to them through that social media.”
And once tuned into a story they are interested in, they turn to “other areas of the internet for confirmation of that information,” like Matt Drudge’s site.
“What is perhaps more interesting,” said the authors, “is that students seem to be following other individuals on social media instead of news organizations. … This study seems to indicate that the students in our sample identify more with the individual than the organization, which seems consistent with the interpersonal nature of social media.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
