The Newspaper as a Source of Consumer Information for Young Adults

Abstract

Data from a random sample of 185 young adults selected from a major midwestern metropolitan area offers strong evidence to indicate that these individuals (19–34 years of age) have very specific usage and preference patterns when they turn to the daily newspaper. High on their priority list of desired newspaper content are (1) Consumer information (how to shop for the best buys, etc.). (2) How-to-do-it articles, (3) Entertainment advertising, (4) Clothing advertising. (5) Restaurant guides, and (6) grocery advertising; in other words information which they can use in decision making. While the young adults indicate that they look for information such as this in their daily newspaper, and would like to see more such information included, they have some very specific complaints about the newspaper as a source of such information. They, for example, feel that the newspaper is not providing enough information of relevance to their needs. they also feel that it is biased and apt to “cover up” stories which they feel should be reported, and that the people who run the newspaper are not paying enough attention to divergent life styles. For this, and other reasons, this age group indicates a decreasing interest in the newspaper due, perhaps in part, to a growing disappointment and apathy toward the perceived unwillingness of the newspaper to attempt to do a better job of providing the type of information they feel is essential to their specific needs. Based on the findings of this study it is recommended that the advertiser and the media manager take another look at the newspaper product and reassess it in light of its attractiveness to this market segment.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 9 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.