Report: Cultivate teens by catching their attention
By Leah McBride Mensching, Friday 18 January 2008 at 22:02 :: Young Reader :: #1125 :: rss
Although most teens don't follow serious news online, news organisations can cultivate their interest by learning how to catch their eyes, a new study by the Media Management Center at Northwestern University claims.
Other tactics news outlets can use to get the attention of teen readers is to “diminish their angst, go where they are on the Web (and) enlist parents and teachers in the cause and help them develop a 'news persona',” the MMC states in the report's executive summary.
Through a qualitative study of 65 Chicago-area teenagers in 2007, the MMC (an SFN content partner) identified three key roadblocks that can stand in the way of teens' online news consumption, and how to get around them:
1. News isn't that important to teens right now.
News on government, politics and public affairs – “hard news” to journalists – are stressful topics for teens, as it reminds them of “the peril in the world,” the study states. To engage this age group on topics that fall into this category, news organisations can “actively experiment with ways to diminish the negative associations teens have with news and to lift their feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness,” the study states. To do so, use news as a tool to talk about what is going on, ask them to write about their feelings and focus on what needs to happen for change.
2. Local news sites aren't much on their radar screens.
Teens don't find news interesting enough to go out of their way to find it. In this way, whatever news pops up in front of them, could be the only news they see. To target this age group, news groups need to “get their content where teens are,” the study states. To get content on sites where teens spend their time, news outlets need to use the tools out there, such as news widgets tailored for teens and making deals with schools, social networking sites and news aggregators to get the content in front of the teens.
3. Even so, teens are “interestable”
According to the study, researchers kept hearing the phrase, “I will read it if it catches my eye.” Once interested, they will read, watch or listen, but the key is to initially grab their attention “with subjects that interest them, video, pictures, the right topics, humorous and weird news and new things.”
For more on this study, visit the MMC Web site.
A PDF of the study is available here.
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