Few university students reading newspapers online

Newspaper Research Journal, Spring 2002 by Bressers, Bonnie, Bergen, Lori

Katz has called newspapers the "biggest and saddest losers in the information revolution. With the possible exception of network-TV newscasts, papers are now our least hip medium, relentlessly one-way, not-interactive, and smug."10

Indeed, the Christian Science Monitor's associate online editor Tom Regan says, "Interactivity is the 'magicbullet' that papers have been searching for since circulation began to drop in the '60s."11

Interactivity allows users to link with related stories and relevant sites, original source material, audio/visual materials, archives, online discussion groups and newspaper staff. Unlike traditional news media, online newspapers allow users to create their own news story.

Given what experts call this "non-linear" method of storytelling, some predict the online future will belong to those newspaper sites with search engines that most efficiently facilitate users' access to archives and links to external information resources. Writing in Wired Magazine, Paul Saffo says:

The future belongs to neither the conduit or the content players, but those who control the filtering, searching, and sense-making tools we rely on to navigate through the expanses of cyberspace..A decade ago, the network with the best shows won; soon it will be the provider with the best agent who comes out on top.12

How Do Young Adults Use the Internet?

The Internet is a growing source of news for every demographic group. Thirty percent of those 18-29 report going online to get news at least once a week, up from 7 percent in 1995.(13) This age group is increasingly likely to be "eventdriven," following news only when interesting or important events occur. Sixtythree percent identified themselves as event-driven national news consumers in April 2000, up from 54 percent in 1999.(14)

While young people are turning to the Internet for news, their sources for news are not online newspapers. Users between the ages of 18 and 24 account for only 10.9 percent of online newspaper users, according to a 1999 Editor & Publisher survey.15

In addition, 100 percent of the class of 2003 uses the Internet to send e-mail, with research for course work ranking second, according to a 10-member panel of college students at Editor & Publisher's 2000 Interactive Newspaper conference.16 Other uses, they said, include searching for jobs, finding local entertainment news, making travel arrangements, shopping and surfing. Use of the Internet for accessing online newspapers was conspicuously absent, although several said they occasionally access their hometown newspapers on the Web.

Pollster Louis Harris & Associates report the top six reasons Americans use the Internet are conducting research, gathering information on goods and services, sending e-mail, purchasing goods, surfing for goods and services and obtaining news and weather updates.17 Male and female users differ. Men tend to surf, spending more time online than women, who go online in search of specific information.18 Men seek information on technology, business, world news, sports and political news while women access science/health news, entertainment news and local news.19