FRANCE
Roman Pimbuskiy, an 18-year-old science student at an elite secondary school, has trouble remembering the last time he read a newspaper.
“It’s mostly the Internet that I use. And sometimes TV — Euronews is good,” he said.
Roman has just missed out on the French government’s decision to give every teenager a year’s free subscription to a newspaper of their choice on their 18th birthday. The scheme — in which newspapers will cover the cost of the free copies while the government will finance the delivery — was part of a 600 million euro (US$778.5 million) project announced two weeks ago by President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost dwindling readership and lure youngsters back from the Internet.
Although widely welcomed by a beleaguered French industry, some commentators have dismissed it as a stunt that does not address the root problem: The content of French newspapers is too middle-aged to be of interest to young adults who get most of their news from Web sites such as Google News and Digg-France.com.
Vincent Crespel, a teacher at Roman’s Parisian lycee, said his pupils “might read Metro or 20Minutes on the train on the way in, so they do read print publications, but generally only the free ones.”
However, almost all his pupils had Le Monde’s Web site as one of their favorite Internet links.
“As soon as they want information in depth they go to that,” he said.
Despite their reputation as an online generation, however, there are many French teenagers who would welcome the chance to subscribe. Amelie Robin, an undergraduate in her first year of theater studies, said her favorite means of keeping up with the news was the Courrier International, a monthly French review that brings together and translates the best of the world’s press coverage.
GERMANY
About 47 percent of Germans between the ages of 14 and 19 regularly read a newspaper (compared with 72.4 percent for the whole population), according to the latest data from the Federation of German Newspaper Publishers. This is a sharp decline from 20 years ago, when the figure was about 77 percent. But, says federation spokeswoman Anja Pasquay, it compares favorably with other countries and reflects the way the German media market has diversified to include the introduction of private television and the Internet.
Contrary to popular belief, those who rely on the Web as a source of news still tend to be enthusiastic newspaper readers.
When it comes to prioritizing news sources, 18-year-olds are, statistically speaking, more likely to put the Internet at the top, followed by TV and then newspapers.
But Sarah Kunne, an 18-year-old student in Berlin, says she still prefers newspapers.
“It’s just easier than looking at a screen and is much more able to surprise me with its content than a news Web site, which often feels ‘served up,’” she says.
Her reading habit consists mainly of the weekly paper Die Zeit, a heavy dose of politics and culture, to which she subscribes at a discount rate, and Neon, a hip, reportage-heavy magazine for students, which she borrows from her elder sister.
German newspapers enjoy a reduced rate of value-added tax but not the same government support as France, and the newspaper market is seen as being much healthier for that.
“Newspaper education” is also an important part of the German school curriculum, and is sometimes introduced as early as kindergarten level. Young people are taught how to navigate their way around newspapers and often spend time producing their own or visiting newspaper offices. A recently launched newspaper project called Tom’s Book, which is touring the country in an attempt to highlight the importance of newspapers, has proved to be hugely popular.
CHINA
The past three decades have been good for Chinese newspapers. Economic reforms saw their numbers soar from 186 to 2,137 between 1978 and 2002, with vibrant and sometimes edgy publications springing up alongside the stodgy state media. An increasingly urbanized, educated population kept circulations growing. According to official figures from 2007, 53.7 percent of 15 to 24-year-old city dwellers said they read a paper daily.
But in a country with the world’s largest Internet population (about 300 million users and counting), young people are fast abandoning print media. Dong Aidi, 18, is a middle-class Beijinger studying international finance, yet she can’t remember the last time she picked up a newspaper.
“My parents used to buy them, but they hardly ever bother now. There are so many convenient ways to get information. Why would you buy newspapers and just sit there and read? That would waste our time,” she says.
Many young Chinese rely on the Net for news banned from official media. Censors scrub sensitive material, but it can be passed on rapidly via blogs, e-mails and Internet chat. Aidi watched the video of a protester throwing a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) on YouTube long before state television screened it.
“It was very popular among all the students. We watched it and thought, we don’t like that guy [the activist]. What a jerk!”
UNITED STATES
If the behavior of the American reading public gives a foretaste of what lies ahead for other media markets around the world, then Sarkozy’s proposal would seem to be little more than whistling in the wind. Teenagers here are already so detached from the habit of holding a newspaper in their hands that even if you paid them to do so it is doubtful whether it would have any impact.
In December, the Internet surpassed newspapers for the first time as the main source of national and international news for all Americans, with only television news still to be vanquished. The survey, conducted by Pew Research Centre, showed that for people aged 18 to 29 the competition between the Web and print has already been fought and won.
Just two years ago the two news forms were relatively evenly matched, with 32 percent of the age group saying they regarded the Web as a main news source and 29 percent citing newspapers. By December the game was up: Fifty-nine percent cited the Internet and 28 percent print.
A Pew study last summer showed that the habit of taking in news at particular times of the day — newspapers at the breakfast table, TV evening news over dinner — has been shattered, to be replaced by a rolling relationship throughout the day. Two-thirds of 18 to 24-year-olds in the Pew survey said they got their news during the day as opposed to any set times.
“Young people are interested in news, but they want it when they want it and newspapers can’t meet that need,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of Pew’s project for excellence in journalism.
David Helene, 18, is perhaps typical of his generation in that although he’s keen to learn about foreign policy and economic news, newspapers are not a part of his life.
“I’m constantly busy and moving around all the time, and it’s hard for me to lay my hands on a copy,” he says.
The good news for newspapers is that David at least turns to the New York Times Web site for his news hit about three times a week. Many other teenagers are not even doing that — they get their news through social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, or randomly as they surf the Web.
“I give Sarkozy credit for taking the problem seriously,” says Evan Cornog of the Columbia Journalism Review. “But he can’t hold back the tide.”
VENEZUELA
For young Venezuelans seeking news, newspapers are just about the last resort. Facebook, YouTube, radio and TV tell them all they want to know.
“They want information that is fast and dynamic, and usually that means the Internet,” said Briceida Morales, a media studies lecturer at Santa Maria University in Barinas.
She says that when a news story that they care about breaks, those with Internet access — through mobile phones, cybercafes or computers at home or school — click on to their favorite sites.
Venezuelan students have also become players in a highly polarized environment that splits the country into those for and against President Hugo Chavez’s self-styled socialist revolution.
They use networking sites to co-ordinate marches and rallies and upload footage of the events, especially if there have been clashes with police and tear gas. Footage from one recent protest was uploaded, mixed to David Bowie’s song Heroes and peppered with comments hours ahead of TV news. Newspapers languish even further behind the pace.
Newspaper readership is low across Latin America. For instance, Folha de Sao Paulo, the leading paper of Brazil, has a circulation of just 316,000 in a population of 196 million. In Nicaragua, only 17 percent of young people say they read newspapers. Poverty and illiteracy play a part, as well as the aloofness and dullness of papers.
INDIA
Thanks to increasing rates of literacy and a rising advertising market, newspapers in India are booming. The country has about 250 English dailies claiming a circulation of about 40 million. In 2005, the Times of India became the world’s largest-selling English broadsheet newspaper with more than 2.4 million copies sold every day. Even more encouraging is that there are 1,000 papers in Hindi, the largest vernacular language, with a combined circulation of 80 million.
However, there are concerns that newspapers have not adapted to younger readers. Many are switching to the Web or mobiles to get their news and many prefer sports, music and celebrity gossip to international affairs or politics.
Shubit Kumar, a 21-year-old student, spends an hour on the Net every day compared with 20 minutes with a newspaper.
“The paper just gives you the story, not the analysis. If I am interested I check up on the Web what is happening. Also, papers don’t have enough things in them. I play in a rock band but I never read anything about Iron Maiden or Coldplay in the newspapers,” Kumar said.
Dainik Jagran, one of India’s biggest Hindi papers, has launched a new publication, I-Next, targeted at young people and written in a mixture of Hindi and English. The Daily Mail created an Indian version that, according to Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, a media columnist, has worked “by putting celebrities on the right-hand page and serious politics on the left.”
No media analyst concedes that print is going out of style in India, but there are concerns about how content is changing. P.N. Vasanti, director of the Centre for Media Studies in Delhi, says that newspapers are “giving in to tabloidization and trivialization of content.”
“In terms of coverage on the front pages we are not seeing critical issues like environment and wildlife, corruption and heritage,” Vasanti said. “Even education is not there 95 percent of the time. We are seeing some signs of a similar trend even in India to catch young readers. But we have to ask: What is the price?”
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