Top

Young readers, elections and the internet

September 12, 2008 by grzegorz.piechota 

Media Management Center's report: From 'Too Much' to 'Just Right': Engaging Millennials in Election News on the WebYoung people often click away from election news online because they feel the sites bombard them with too much information and too many choices.

The Media Management Center at the Northwestern University, USA, has released this week a new report titled “From ‘Too Much’ to ‘Just Right’: Engaging Millennials in Election News on the Web.

It is based on a qualitative, in-depth study of a diverse group of 89 Chicago-area adults between the ages of 17 and 22, a demographic frequently referred to as millennials.

Of course it is about the coming US presidential elections, but also newspapers from other countries can find it interesting and inspiring.  

“More than three quarters of the young people we interviewed said they have found the election itself interesting. But the experience they have with reading and hearing about the election online leaves much to be desired,” says Vivian Vahlberg, one of the authors of a research report released this week by .

The MMC report found that while millennials are interested in the elections and want information about the candidates and issues, they don’t want to spend much time following day-to-day developments. However, they do appreciate news sites that help them — and other new voters — understand the basics about the candidates, issues and election process.??Among other research findings and recommendations:

  • Millennials prefer to get election news from and trust sites that are in the primary business of news.
  • They don’t particularly like commenting about the news online or reading comments.
  • Attempts to infuse the news with social networking features, amateur content, humor and youth oriented content can backfire if they diminish the seriousness and professionalism young people expect from news Web sites.

“This group is selective about how it spends its time,” said Vahlberg. “Our report provides news organizations that want to compete for the time and attention of millennials with a better understanding of their news needs, preferences and habits.”

??Researchers found the subject of the news doesn’t usually trigger a “too much” reflex unless the subject has been over covered. The reflex is more about presentation and quantity. For example, things that turn off millennials include sites that are or have:

  • Too many things competing for attention, without clues about what is most important;
  • Too many details;
  • Too wordy; not distilled to the essence;
  • Too many choices;
  • Too much text, too high a percentage of text to graphics, or a screen of mostly text;
  • Site features that they don’t immediately understand;
  • Pages or stories that go on and on and on.
  • To prevent overwhelming millennials, the report recommends that news organizations:
  • Place huge emphasis on clear, helpful, immediately understandable organization and design that signals what to focus on and conveys the relative importance of offerings on a page. Short, meaningful, compelling headlines are essential.
  • Offer content in manageable layers and chunks, letting the reader decide how deep to go. When stories go more than a page, young adults tend to tune out. However, if stories maintain their interest enough to click on a link, the millennials want some substance.
  • Have a lot but display a little. It’s better for this audience to be selective in what is presented (with links to more information) than to overwhelm with “too much.”
  • Concentrate most on information resources that help young people (and other new voters) understand the basics about the candidates, the issues and the election process.

You can read the complete report for free in PDF format.

You can also sign up for the free webinar next Monday. The one-hour Webinar, from 1-2 p.m. CDT, will not only review the research findings and recommendations but will also use video clips and screen grabs to enable participants to see and hear in their own words what young people say about their current experiences with political news online.??

Comments

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!





Case studies on journalism, interactions and marketing of newspapers

alt text Obama would win the US elections if they were held in eight other countries

Is not it a somewhat crazy idea? Canadian daily newspaper La Presse invited the leading titles from many countries of the world to make a poll about US presidential candidates. Seven newspapers followed. The result: Obama would win everywhere. An international... 

alt text Stanislaw Lem’s unpublished works discovered

Newspaper’s idea to publish a collection of the greatest works by a science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem helped to discover his unpublished opera on Stalin. Stanislaw Lem was 85 when he died in 2006. His books — like Solaris, Tales of Prix... 

alt text Revealed: Pope John Paul Wounded by Priest in 1982

The Pope John Paul II was wounded by a knife-wielding priest in 1982, a year after he was shot in St Peter’s Square, but the injury was kept secret, his former top aide says in a documentary film, co-produced by a Polish newspaper. Cardinal Stanislaw... 

alt text How to engage bloggers into the newspaper

Here are some tips from John Wilpers of Innovation: You need to go out into the community, find the quality bloggers, send them an e-mail or call them on the phone. ”It does not take a lot of convincing.” Mr. Wilpers, a consultant for Innovation Media... 

alt text How to change our newspaper’s image

”When you try to change an image of a newspaper with a marketing campaign, changes in its content must follow. Otherwise there would be a disconnection between the new image and the content,” says Bernard Asselin, Vice President of The Gazette in... 

alt text Mobile content: snack, speed & snip

”Content on mobile phone is all about snacking. All about speed. You just want little snippets of information,” says Annabel Hembry, Head of Communications at Associated Newspapers (UK). Ms. Hembry is responsible for mobile channels at the Mail titles... 

alt text Media convergence: dare to make mistakes

“90 per cent of newspaper reporters can become good TV or radio journalists. It is not difficult. Don’t make it a rocket science,” says Ulrik Haagerup, Head of News at Danish Broadcasting Corporation and former newspaper editor. Mr.... 

Bottom