News Platform Preference Among Millennials: Individual Research Proposal

Antonio Ramirez Aristeguieta

Florida International University

Abstract

???????The purpose of this research proposal is to investigate what platform is the younger generation mostly relying on for new gathering. To prove this, the initial sample will be Emerson College journalism alumni, and Florida International University Global Strategic Communication master’s program students. To obtain participants responses, a survey will be developed using Qualtrics, with the idea that the initial sample shares the survey. The intention is to find participants, that are in the millennial generation. Through the survey, different sets of questions will be made, but mostly considering two main parameters. The first parameter will seek to determine what is the principal platform that participants are using for news gathering, either social media, traditional media outlet, or both. The second parameter will be to determine, which specific social media outlets, or traditional media outlets are participants using and why. With the development of these survey, it is expected to determine a patter or tendency for a specific platform that is mostly being used for purposes of news gathering among the younger segments of the population.

? ?In current times, the way the news is being consumed is dynamically changing and evolving. Moreover, there are important differences regarding news consumption within the different generations, for example, according to a study 61 % of millennials (ages-19-34) claim to obtain their political news from Facebook, and 37 % assure to use the local television for this purpose (Eva Masta, Gottfried, Mitchell, 2015). On the other hand, 39 % the of baby boomer generation (ages 40-55), say that they use Facebook for political news, and incline with a 60 % to local television as a platform preference (Eva Masta, Gottfried, Mitchell, 2015). Also, it believed that the rise of the digital age, has had an important impact on the journalism industry and news consumption, especially within the 18-19 market (Harper, 2010). Even though, there seems to be an overall decline in all forms of traditional news media except online (Bright, Gangadharbatla, Logan, 2014), it is still not certain if traditional media outlets are disappearing among young adults, or if it is being complimented by social media (Chan-Olmsted, Rim, Zerba, 2012). Some authors even argue that there are many assumptions regarding the younger generation and their social media usage, arguing that since research has mostly focused on the United States, many questions remained unanswered (Bolton, Gruber, Hoefnagels, Kabadayi, Komarova, Migchles, Parasuraman, Solnet, 2013). With the previous research, it seems evident that the way the world and news is being communicated is changing. This proposal has the objective if determining, how the millennial generation is behaving toward this change, and what they are mostly using as a platform for news

Literature review

???????????????The new century and the end of the last one has changed the way the world communicates. The creation of the internet, and the rise of the digital age, has had an important impact in the way the news is received and consumed, especially with the younger, or millennial generation which in many cases was born with this reality. One of the most important new platforms that exists for communicating and receiving news during the digital era, are the social media platforms, and again, it has a considerable influence in the younger generations. For example, 61 % of millennials consumed their political news via Facebook, and only 37 %, claimed to watch their local television as a news source (Eva Masta, Gottfried, Mitchell, 2015). This reality has made the journalism industry to change for several reasons; according to Harper, R. (2015), the digital era has created audiences that expect to be able to choose what they read, and that also want to contribute with their opinions, which has developed in the social media revolution. This has changed how journalists operate day to day and also the entire industry, especially newspapers, which has resulted in a necessity for the media to adapt to the reality that news will be covered by using social media (Harper, 2010). In addition, the biggest decline in the traditional media appears to be within the 19 to 24 market, which tend to prefer speedy news (Harper, 2010). The mentioned revolution has translated in the fact that social media has become a major source for news data source (Zubiaga, 2019). When considering, this important change for the communication field, the existence of mobile devices needs to be considered to understand its relevance and impact (Zubiaga, 2019). The importance of mobile devices has given influence on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Periscope, and especially twitter, which has become a gold mine for journalists (Zubiaga,2019). In agreement with these conclusions, Chan-Olmsted, S., Rim, H. & Zerba, A. (2012), claim that mobile news has had significant implications for consumers, and especially for young adults. However, it is possible to believe that traditional media plays a role on mobile news adoption, and that both platforms complement each other (Chan-Olmsted, Rim, Zerba, 2012).?Another aspect to consider is that demographics and socioeconomic status affect the use of mobile news consumption (Chan-Olmsted, Rim, Zerba, 2012). Following this notion, Gaskins, B. & Jerit, J. (2013), claim that the platforms replacement is especially occurring in newspapers and radio but it is still not a widespread phenomenon, also believing that both traditional and social media outlets can coexist. There exists another theory that suggests that all forms of traditional media are suffering decline except online (Bright, Gangadharbatla, Logan, 2014). Moreover, authors claim that the social media revolution have disrupted personal and commercial habits, not seen since the early days of television (Bright, Gangadharbatla, Logan, 2014). In agreement with these claims, Payomo (2019) explains how the digital era has made local and printed news suffer, and also shows a data from the Pew Research Center that reveals that in 2016 there were 74.410 newspaper employees, whereas in 2018 there were 37,900, showing this example as an overrall decline of traditional media industry. Despite what appears to be either an overrall decline of the traditional media industry or a transformation, some authors believe that in many occasions, millennials are only passive observers of news on social media, and not active consumers, also many questions remain unanswered about the average of hypothesis on this topic,?since the research is mostly focusing in the United States ((Bolton, Gruber, Hoefnagels, Kabadayi, Komarova, Migchles, Parasuraman, Solnet, 2013). Other suggestion explains that the younger generations have created an important distrust towards traditional media, which happened at the same time, as news monitoring on the internet grew (Cvetkovska Ocokoljic, Cvetkovski, Milicevic, 2015). This fact leads authors to conclude that millennials are constantly communicating, but not necessarily interested in news (Cvetkovska Ocokoljic, Cvetkovski, Milicevic, 2015). With the evolution of new forms of news media, there has been the appearance of even newer platforms that are rapidly gaining popularity. This has been the case for the podcast, which is defined by Gallo, N. & Newman, N. (2019), as “an episodic series of digital audio files, which you can download, subscribe to, or listen to” (p.8). Furthermore, this format has seen an increase of 32% usage globally, being 54 % of its listeners between the ages of 18-24, and 53% between the ages of 25-34 in the United States (Gallo, Newman, 2019). Among the most popular type of podcasts are the talk interview and daily podcast, like The Daily of The New York Times, and The Intelligence from The Economist (Gallo, Newman, 2019). Authors, Gallo, N. & Newman, N, believe this format could become a new form of radio. With all the diverse information gathered the research questions was set as the following: What platforms are the younger generations (18-29) relying on for news gathering?

Research Methods

Participants and Sampling

???????????The samples and participants for this research proposal will be: Former Emerson College journalism undergraduate students, and Florida International University, Global Strategic Communication graduate students. Also, it would be ideal that participants met the required and determined age frame (18-29). In summary, this would be the objective for the sampling frame and working population of this research proposal. Two methods will be used to find participants, direct contact, and snowball sampling. With the snowball sampling, the research seeks that the mentioned participants share what they receive by the direct contact, to find even more people within the determined range.

Measures ?

??????????To obtain data from participants, a survey will be created using Qualtrics. The beginning of the survey will contain personal information about participants such as age, education status, and sex. In general, the survey will consist of two main parameters. First, it will ask participants to select which platform they prefer for new gathering, either social media, traditional media, both, and/or neither. After responding to the first and principal parameter, the second one will consist of mentioning which ones out their selection they prefer, either television, radio, newspaper, magazine, or Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, among others. These determined patterns will be the quantitative part of the research proposal. In addition, there will be qualitative questions for participants which will mainly consist of the reasons for their given selection, this consists of for example their level of trust, comfort, and closeness to their selected option. This part of the survey will consist of liker type scale questions from 1 to 5 to determine their level of preference, and more developed and elaborated questions. Having this set, a questionnaire will be designed, with the objective that the questions contribute to the mentioned parameters. Also, it will be asked to participants of their mobile devices has an influence in their news platform preference, and/or if they use it for news consumption. Finally, there will be a part that asks participants if they are familiar, and/ or use newer forms of news gathering such as podcasts. The hypothesis for this research for this research proposal, and supported by the literary review, is that the younger generations are mostly relying on social media for news gathering, because it is more familiar, fast, and approachable to the majority of them.

Variables and analysis

????From this research proposal, the independent variable will be the platform preference of the participants, and which specific one or ones out of their given answers they prefer, the dependent variable is the reasons of their preference. In terms of the quantitative analysis of the data, frequency distribution will be used to show the results by platform preference, specific platform preference, and by gender. Within the qualitative analysis, inferential statistics will be used to analyze the data. The data will be coded by calculating the percentages of the selection and afterwards the mean, mode, and standard deviation of the two set parameters, platform preference, and specific social media site or?media outlet within the given answer. Moreover, a Chi Square test is being proposed to calculate any possible difference between the expected frequencies and the observed frequencies, given that there is a hypothesis in this research proposal. Also, a T-test is being proposed to determine the mean scores by gender.

Anticipated Analysis

?????As mentioned in the hypothesis, the research expects that most participants by age, gender, and level of education select social media as their preferred method of news gathering, instead of traditional media outlets. The research also expects Twitter, and Instagram to be the most used social media sites for this purpose. Finally, there is an objective to determine if participants are using even newer forms of news gathering such as podcasts.

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Expected challenges

?????Some of the limitations, and as mentioned in some of the literary review is that the participants are not from a diverse cultural and socioeconomic status, which can limit how certain the analysis can be. Other limitations can be errors in data analysis, limited participants, and not well-developed answers in the qualitative questions.?

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? References

Bolton, R., Parasuraman, A., Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N., Kabadayi, S., Gruber, T., . . . Solnet, D. (2013, June 14). Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: A review and research agenda. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09564231311326987/full/html

Chan-Olmsted, S., Rim, H., & Zerba, A. (2012). Mobile News Adoption among Young Adults: Examining the Roles of Perceptions, News Consumptions, and Media Usage. Retrieved 2020, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1077699012468742

Gangadharbatla, H., Bright, L., & Logan, K. (2014). Social Media and News Gathering: Tapping into the Millennial Mindset. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://thejsms.org/tsmri/index.php/TSMRI/article/view/63

Gaskins, B., & Jerit, J. (2012). Internet News: Is It a Replacement for Traditional Media Outlets? - Benjamin Gaskins, Jennifer Jerit, 2012. SAGE Journals. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1940161211434640.

Harper, R. (2010, March 01). The Social Media Revolution: Exploring the Impact on Journalism and News Media Organizations. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/202/the-social-media-revolution-exploring-the-impact-on-journalism-and-news-media-organizations

Mitchell, A., Gottfried, J., & Matsa, K. (2015, June 1). How Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers Get Political News. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://www.journalism.org/2015/06/01/millennials-political-news/

Newman, N., & Gallo, N. (2019, December 04). News Podcasts and the Opportunities for Publishers. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e3d070ec-cd72-4f44-b234-ec1dda4aa1f0

Ocokoljic, V., Cvetkovski, T., & Milicevic, A. (2013). Millennials and Media: New Messages or New Perception. Retrieved from https://conference.pixel-online.net/FOE/conferences/foe2013/common/download/Paper_pdf/384-MED01-FP-Ocokoljic-FOE2013.pdf

Payomo, F. (2019). The decline of traditional print journalism in a digital age. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://www.thecampanil.com/the-decline-of-traditional-print-journalism-in-a-digital-age/

Zubiaga, A. (2019, September 13). Mining social media for newsgathering: A review. Retrieved December 11, 2020, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468696419300047