Media Source Survey

How does social media effect the way college students receive

relevant and important news and information?

Nate Prince

Jeremy Parmley

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Introduction

Motivation- Information comes to people in different forms: Television, Internet, Radio, News paper and Magazines. In today’s fast paced and technologically advanced world, main stream media makes its way into society rapidly with the use of the mediums listed above. College students seem to spend a lot of their time on social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and others.

Introduction

• Importance- The statistics of this survey will be important to communication and media studies research to give an idea as to what forms of media are most commonly used and what effects social media has on the way we receive news and where people will be getting their news in the future.

Literature Review

College students have been studied with the use of EDUCAUSE and eMarketer (internet marketing and surveyors) to find out how much time college students spend on social networking services. The study was conducted by an internet website group called Social Media optimization.com; after conducting their online surveys, it was determined out of 44 colleges and universities during 2006, 2007, and 2008, that twice as many students used social networking in 2008 than did in 2006.

Literature Review

• Another survey conducted by Fox Business.com (2011) states that social networking sites such as Facebook, Linkedin, and twitter are now being used for college students as a way to find jobs. “28% of college students plan on seeking employment using LinkedIn, up from 5% from last year's survey. More than 7% said they plan to use Facebook to look for a career post-graduation.” Not only are students using social networks to communicate, they are now able to job search. Social networking also does a great deal of networking making it much more than just social entertainment.

Literature Review

• Possibilities in the future

Today news, sports/entertainment, social networking, and literature, can all be found on the World Wide Web, and the World Wide Web can be found through various technologies; smart phones, computers, handheld devices such as the Ipad, all are able to access and download information from the internet. With social networking becoming more than just social entertainment, the future for it may contain many other additions. Social media is becoming more and more of a reality. Social identities are being formed and with downloadable applications that can do a range of things such as keep track of your credit card purchases, your weight and body fat, and a alarm clock that goes along with your calendar are all things that go beyond social media and it is

with you at all times.

Expectations

• Based on our literature review, we have determined that college students use the internet far more than any other form of media to collect news and information. We also researched that social networking seems to be a common and highly used form of entertainment and it is becoming a means of lifestyle.

Expectations

• We would expect to see that the majority people receive their news from the television and internet, with a small segment using social media for news.

• Most people will answer that they expect to see more people using internet and social media for news in 5 years, and only a few using the radio or newspaper.

Study Design/Methods

• Surveys- Survey research is a method for collecting and analyzing social data highly structured and often very detailed interviews or questionnaires in order to obtain information from large numbers of respondents in order to obtain information from large numbers of respondents to be representative of a specific population. (p.37 Media and Communication Research Methods)

Study Design/Methods

• To find our data we decided to go with the survey method because it was cheap, less time consuming, and we had plenty of people at hand to ask questions. For our surveys we used Facebook “question”; “question” is an online survey that allows you to set up the questions you want to ask and provide the options to be selected. The question is then sent out to your network on Facebook, in this case the University of Southern Maine, and your results are sent back to you.

Survey Design/ Methods

• For this study we used surveys as well as interviews.

• We surveyed 45 students at USM as well as used the Question feature on the social media site Facebook (using only the results from responders who are in college) to determine how people got their news.

Survey Design/Methods

The surveys asked about how people’s main methods of getting news and what secondary news sources they use. It also asked where people thought they would be getting the majority of their news in 5 years and where they were getting their news 5 years ago.

Interview Design/Methods

We then interviewed 5 of the responders, who all answered differently to the question “What is your primary source for receiving news?” to find more information as to why they used the news sources they did as well as to find out what types of news they were interested in and how important news is to them.

Survey ResultsWhat is your primary source for receivng news?

0

5

10

15

20

25

InternetNews Sites:

21

Television:10

Radio: 4 SocialMedia: 8

Newspaper:2

Other: 0

Facebook Question Results

• The results from the Facebook Question were very similar to the results from the surveys

• Only counting responses from people in college, which totaled 33, the results showed:- 15 get their news from the internet- 8 get their news from television- 8 get their news from social media sites- 2 get their news from the newspaper- 0 get their news from the radio or other

Survey ResultsWhat is your secondary source for receiving news?

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

InternetNews Sites

13

Television: 13 Radio: 4 Social Media:12

Newspaper: 4 Other: 0

Survey ResultsWhat was your primary source for receiving news 5 years

ago?

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

InternetNews Sites:

11

Television:17

Radio: 7 SocialMedia: 2

Newspaper:8

Other: 0

Survey ResultsWhat do you think will be your primary source for

receiving news 5 years from now?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

InternetNews Sites:

25

Television:8

Radio: 2 SocialMedia: 10

Newspaper:0

Other: 0

Survey Results

• What about real-life, world-changing news?

• The survey also asked where the responder first heard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks as well as where they first heard about Osama bin Laden’s death

• This is a relative comparison that shows how we really receive important, breaking information versus the way way we did 10 years ago

Survey ResultsWhere did you first hear about the 9/11 terrorist attacks?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Internet News Sites: 0

Television: 27

Radio: 9

Social Media: 0Newspaper: 0Friend/Relative: 9

Survey ResultsWhere did you first hear about the death of Osama

bin Laden?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Internet News Sites: 5

Television: 4

Radio: 0

Social Media: 29Newspaper: 2

Friend/Relative: 5

Interview Results

After conducting the interviews, it is very apparent that the main reason people choose one source of news over another is convenience. It seems that the source that is available around one’s personal schedule (or the ability to be available anytime) is what they choose to use.

Interview Results

• For example, the person we interviewed that gets his news from the newspaper has time before class in the morning to sit down at breakfast and actually read the paper, while the person who watches the news on TV every night has her evenings free. The person who listens to the radio is extremely busy and is only able to get news in the car on the way to work. The people who use the internet and social media prefer the fact that they can access the news on their own time, and do not have to stick to a set schedule.

Interview Results

• Another interesting fact was the way people perceive the word “news”. Everyone interviewed assumed news only referred to local, national, or global news. When further questioned about what social news meant to them, and how it important it is in their lives, everyone answered that it was at least nearly as important as other news.

Interview Results

• Of course, the main way all of the interviewees receive social news is social media. Therefore, the methods we choose to receive news also depends on what type of news we are looking for.

Conclusion

Our results show us that while social media is not the primary way people receive news, it definitely plays a big role in the way people obtain information. We came to the conclusion that people do not consciously realize that they are actually getting news when they use social media sites, but they actually play a large role in the way we receive and process information, as was the case with the way the news of Osama bin Laden’s death spread rapidly on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Conclusion

• Based on our findings it is apparent that social media sites will continue to grow as sources for information, especially among college students. Though they will most likely never replace actual news sites as places for concrete, more often than not, the first a place a breaking story will surface will be in social media

References

• http://social-media-optimization.com/2008/09/college-students-use-of-social-networks/

• http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/04/13/college-students-using-social-media-job-search/

• http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/17/it

• http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2010_Survey_FullReport1.pdf

• http://mashable.com/2010/09/07/next-5-years-social-media/

• Berger, A. A. (2011). Media and Commmunication Research Methods . Thousand Oaks, California 91320: SAGE Publications Inc.