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Iraq War News: Are Young Adults Bored With Its Coverage?

How the news is presented, not the news itself, is putting young adult audiences off, say Central Michigan University media researchers David Weinstock and Timothy Boudreau. Their survey of 244 college students, ages 18 to 25, examines the students’ wartime media uses, preferences and attitudes about news media. The students were surveyed April 21-24, 2003, as U.S. forces were struggling to restore order in Baghdad. The researchers offer the following observations:

Youth interest in the war should have been high. "If the Iraq War had lasted for months instead of weeks, young people likely would have been called to fight. Since no one knew how long the war would last, young adults’ interest in war news should have been very high," said Weinstock and Boudreau. Forty percent of those surveyed also reported having a family member in the U.S. armed forces.

Youthful news-seekers are quickly satisfied. Though 90 percent of those surveyed stated an interest in the war, 75 percent spent less than one hour finding and reading news. "Whatever interest our students had in war news, stories failed to hold their attention beyond the immediate context of the conflict," the pair stated.

David Weinstock | newswise
Further information:
http://www.cmich.edu/newstips/ntips.asp?ID=707

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