Is the Media Targeting Generation Y with Social Media?

Last time I touched on the increasing amount of focus that journalists are starting to place on social media for news stories but are journalists turning to social media solely for the purpose of stories? Perhaps the media is trying to reel in the younger audiences by appealing to what many of them use daily.

As a member of generation x, I know the closest some of my peers come to watching the news is watching Sportscenter and perhaps an internet article that’s embedded in the opening page of their emails. When one has the news at their fingertips, meaning they can easily log onto cnn.com or an alternate news website, watching the news becomes unnecessary. Besides that, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter usually keep people abreast on the largest news stories as the sites patrons typically comment or post the big news of the day on their homepages. However, it would make sense to try to connect with the younger audience through social media as social networking is part of their everyday life. As impatient as generation x is, the statistics tell us that generation y is even more impatient. Perhaps growing up with technology that allows communication to flow within a matter of seconds may have something to do with their impatience.

The article, “U.S. teenagers have little interest in new: study” (http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1036737320070710 ) attests to my aforementioned comments. The article, written by Svea Herbst-Bayliss, tells us that 28 percent of Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 said they pay almost no attention to news every day, while 32 percent said they pay only casual attention to one news source a day. Herbst-Bayliss goes onto to speculate that the youth does not rely as heavily on newspapers as their predecessors once did and even though they can use the internet obtain the news, they prefer play games online or e-mail friends. Pew Internet & American Life Project below illustrates the other activities teenagers chose to take advantage of besides catching up with the news.









Another fact that should be added to the discussion, is the younger generation’s skepticism when it comes to truth telling. Perhaps they don’t view the news as a trustworthy source of information or they believe that facts are either altered or omitted in hopes of appeasing viewers. While it is evident that the younger generations do spend a lot of time on their computers or phones, the graph below tells us that they still utilize the television as well.

It makes sense that the news would try to attach itself to the fastest growing phenomenon we have seen since the invention of the television. I have no doubt that news companies are aware of the aforementioned statistics, as are the networks they answer to, and see that the mentioning of Twitter or Facebook in their news broadcast might just catch the ear of younger viewers. Perhaps the news should look into altering its content before they increase their incorporation of social media in their broadcast.