News

Introduction

For a society to be democratic in all its aspects, the citizens need to be educated and made aware of the current issues in the contemporary world. This notion has proved to be a problem to the political elite in attempts to determine ways of appealing to the youthful generation in the American history. The behavior of this generation has proved to be more complex than the immediate past generation. There is a decreased tendency on the influence of information obtained from newspaper in relation to the different generations. Parents of the American youths are much involved with newspaper compared to their sons and daughters. This is based on the sense of belonging, expectations, and pride associated with knowledge obtained from news sources such as newspaper. Those who dig deep into politics enjoy much satisfaction from newspaper sources of information. Based on this notion, future democracy of America depends on the political awareness by the youthful society members (Jarvis E. et al. 2009).

The youthful group is attracted to the dramatic and entertaining piece of the media. They spend most of their time online surfing dramatic issues satisfying their entertainment wants. Although this group would bend to the needs of the society’s important information, researches have predicted future complexions. For example, in cases of dramatic news material, the ability of the youths to apply critical thinking will be limited. They will offer more attention to the dramatic aspect of the news and neglect the important information intended to the audience. Narrowing the content of the news is not an option, as it will reduce the diet in other media sources compared to information extracted from newspapers. The content that appeals to the youths in the society is not in accordance with the beliefs and values of the democratic life. The overwhelming issue affecting America is how the content of the media can be presenting as necessity and valid. The validity of the media information has been studied by several researches in relation to mass media institution (Jarvis E. et al. 2009).

The notion that television content was considered more valid than the newspaper diet has been reversed due to critical evaluation of studies under the same topic. The intentions and purposes of news consumptions are unique depending on the individual. The critical issue is how the young audiences obtain, use, and trust the information directed to them by social media institution. Individual’s trust of a source will determine his/her content consumption and level of awareness. The content of news can offer knowledge, which is considered a vital tool in the field of politics. The creation of news to the society is not equal in the sense of diet or content it conveys or intended to convey to the audience. Example can be drawn from news coverage that has the tendency to enhance political environment and increase the societal participation in politics. Such contents include campaigns and presidential debates. Other news contents usually lead to negative effects on the part of the audience. Such contents are related to accidents, tragedies, and terrorism/war. This article looks to answer questions related to the content that appeals to the younger societal members. The contents that proves useful to them. The research is also designed to find out which media diet attracts much trust from the younger members of the society (Jarvis E. et al. 2009).

Literature Review Analysis

The author of this article clearly states four research questions to help in unveiling the hidden misery about the content of mass media in relation to the younger members of the society. The first research question is intended to extract information on the sources from which college students get their news. The second research question is formulated with intentions of unveiling the news sources trusted by the college students. The third research question is investigating the relationship between the uses of news and the level of trust accorded to the content by the college students. The fourth research question is based on the satisfactions derived from the news diet that predicts how the college students will use the information obtained from the new source. The research questions are clear in that they do not present double stands thus the reader or other researchers are not confused when reading the article. They precisely state what the research is investigation. These questions offer directions to the researcher when conducting this research, as he does not include unnecessary information (Jarvis E. et al. 2009).

In this article, the author illustrates hypothesis of the study in the introductory part. The author uses other literature materials to predict the outcome of the research question, which involves the young Americans use and trust of the news content and source. Without critical reading, the reader cannot locate the presented hypotheses, as the author does not present them clearly. In other research articles, authors usually illustrate hypotheses in point form. This makes it easier to read and get the gist of the research article at the first reading. The author also includes valid and relevant media theory as reference to hypotheses presented. The presented hypotheses are relevant to the research questions since they focus mainly on the young Americans, news source, use, and trust in relation to media content/diet. The degree of relevance of hypotheses presented in this article is confirmed in the findings of this research.

In the introduction section of the article, the author brings out the research questions out clearly through the help of predicted outcomes. This is supplemented to the several leading questions asked in relation to the topic of study, which is the source, use, and trust of the media content and diet. The significance of research question is expressed by the use of relevant examples used by the author in trying to capture attention of readers and other researchers. Illustration of research questions by the author in the introductory section of the article, gives the reader an early indication of the study (Jarvis E. et al. 2009).

In the literature review, the author of the article does not go beyond summary of the conclusions made by other author. The author makes remarks with citations from other sources as a show of acknowledgement of the borrowed information. The literature part of this article focuses on findings and remarks made by other authors under the same field of study. In this research article, the author does not relate the findings and remarks of the sources used in literature review. The author uses the remarks simultaneously, but does not relate or compare the four research articles. The close relationship among the sources is illustrated by related examples presented by the author from different research articles. The relationship offers a strong stand to the study of the sources, uses, and trust accorded to the media content by the college students or the young Americans (Jarvis E. et al. 2009).

The author did not illustrate clearly how similar or different were the other literature sources in relation to this study. In order to determine the uniqueness or similarities between the sources used, one is required to apply critical examination on the thoughts and examples presented under the literature review section. The examples presented indicate that the four literature items are related to the study presented in the article.  The author also presents different views and explanations in the literature review section. This clearly shows that unique experiments, under the same field, were conducted with respect to different conditions. This is an indication of similarity and difference of the articles used by the author to offer stepping-stone to this research.

The author explained what other authors were not able to learn about the research question present. The author does this by indicating the main objective of the study towards the end of the literature review. The author of this article acknowledges that the purpose of this study is to unveil ways of making content more appealing to the young Americans. This is an indication that the previous researches and the four sources reviewed failed to address this issue. The author also notes that previous projects on the same subject possess elements of complexity through data collected. The previous studies failed to interpret data collected during the research.  By formulation of unrelated research questions, is an indication of failed researches on the same or related topic. This modification is aimed at solving the unanswered questions as presented in the articles used in literature review (Jarvis E. et al. 2009).

References

Delli Carpini, M. X (2000). Gen.com: Youth, civic engagement, and the new information  environment. Political Communication, 17, 341-3

Graber, D. (2000). Adapting political news to the needs of the twenty-first century Americans. In W. L. Bennett & R. M. Entman (Eds), Mediated politics: Communication in the future of     democracy (pg 433-452). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Jarvis E. et al. (2009). College students, news use, and trust. Eastern Communication  Association.

Kiousis, S. (2001). Public trust or mistrust? Perceptions of media credibility in the information age. Mass Communication & Society, 4, 381-403.

Mindich, D. T. Z. (2005). Tuned out: Why Americans under 40 do not follow the news, New            York: Oxford University Press.