PluggedIn or TunedOut News, Knowledge

1
Plugged-In or Tuned-Out? News, Knowledge
Engagement Among College Students

• Alison Alexander, Ph.D
• Melissa Galin, M.S.
• Karen Hilyard, M.A.
• Erin Ryan, M.A.

2
Literature Review

• News Knowledge Civic Engagement
• Youth news consumption and civic engagement
  consistently dropping
• Comedy news youth viewership growing
• Major sources included, among others
• David Mindich
• Erica Weintraub Austin
• Barry Hollander
• Jack McLeod

3
Areas for Explication

• Youth news consumption, news knowledge and
  political engagement outside a Presidential
  election cycle
• Trends in comedy news, traditional news and
  internet news consumption among youth and
  consequences

4
Research Questions

• RQ1 What news sources do people ages 18-24 use?
• H1 Young people turn to non-traditional/comedy
  sources like The Daily Show more often than they
  turn to traditional news sources.
• RQ2 Is news consumption linked to news
  knowledge?
• H2 Traditional news consumption is positively
  correlated with news knowledge.

5
Research Questions

• RQ3 What are the mediating effects of cynicism
  and political engagement on news knowledge?
• H3 Political engagement is inversely related to
  cynicism.
• RQ4 What predicts political engagement?

6
Methods

• 370 undergraduates in 44 majors surveyed
• Survey explored
• News consumption ? Cynicism
• News knowledge ? Demographic
• Political participation variables
• News sources included
• television news (traditional, non-traditional/
  comedy)
• newspapers
• internet/blogs (traditional, non-traditional/comed
  y)

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Results

• RQ1 What news sources do people ages 18-24 use?
• 94.1 regularly use at least one traditional news
  source
• 38.9 regularly use at least one
  non-traditional/comedy news source
• Factor analysis revealed newsies, cynics, and
  entertainment seekers
• H1 not supported -- Youth do not turn to
  comedy/non-traditional instead of traditional
  news

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Results

• RQ2 Is news consumption linked to news
  knowledge?
• News sources account for 19.8 of variance in
  news knowledge score (stepwise regression)
• Internet use most strongly linked to news
  knowledge, followed by newspapers, comedy and
  television (hierarchical regression)
• Internet -- .300 ? Newspapers -- .283
• Comedy -- .218 ? TV -- .177
• H2 supported Traditional news consumption
  significantly correlated with news knowledge

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Results

• RQ3 What are the mediating effects of cynicism
  and political engagement on news knowledge?
• Combined variables have no significant mediating
  effect on news knowledge
• Significant relationship between political
  engagement and news knowledge
• No significant relationship between cynicism
  news knowledge
• H3 not supported -- No significant relationship
  between cynicism and political engagement.

10
Results

• RQ4 What predicts political engagement?
• 8.4 of variance from news source
• Television (ß.228, plt.001) and newspapers
  (ß.123, plt.05) had the greatest impact.
• 3.1 of variance from news knowledge.
• News knowledge (ß.183, p.001).

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Discussion

• Traditional news is not dead.
• Comedy news is not a replacement for traditional
  news, but an additional source of information.
• Knowledge among internet and newspaper consumers
  may be higher as a result of interactive
  consumption.
• Comedy news is also interactive. Some degree of
  prior knowledge is often necessary to get the
  joke.

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Discussion

• This represents one way of looking at the
  association between news consumption, political
  engagement, and news knowledge.
• Areas for future research
• Is news knowledge a cause or an effect of
  political engagement?
• What are the trends and consequences of non-mass-
  media sources of news among youth consumers?
• Peer groups, family members, instant messaging.

13
Plugged-In or Tuned-Out? News, Knowledge
Engagement Among College Students

• Alison Alexander, Ph.D
• Melissa Galin, M.S.
• Karen Hilyard, M.A.
• Erin Ryan, M.A.