Media usage of journalism students of the University of Missouri--Columbia

Abstract

The Internet has become ubiquitous in many Americans' lives, raising questions about its effect on traditional media usage. Given this, how do today's journalism students - the future leaders of journalism - use the Internet and other forms of media? A survey of journalism students at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the oldest and one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the country, was conducted to answer these questions. The link to a Web-based survey was distributed by email to all 1,800 journalism students enrolled at the school during 2007. A total of 409 responses were obtained. This survey found a positive correlation between online news use and print news use among the survey population of presumably news interested individuals. While online newspapers were the majority of respondents' primary source for world, political and business news, print newspapers were the primary source reported by the majority of respondents for local and regional news. In addition, print news was considered to be more credible than online news, while online news was considered to be more timely and easy to use. Younger respondents were more likely to select online news as a primary source for many types of news and to report time spent on social networks. However, the younger students appeared to find more benefit in print news than their counterparts in the general U.S. population, reporting more print readership on a daily basis. These findings suggest that University of Missouri journalism students, even younger students, see separate benefits to each form of news and use various forms in a complementary fashion, rather than substituting one for another. Given this, it may be that these young students find ways to make print news more relevant to their peers in the future.