Amolo emmanuel N
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From earlier notions and researches conducted by different scholars, across different circles, it is quite clear that reading newspapers is a dying preoccupation in some part of the world, especially among young people. What is happening is a revolution in the way young people are accessing news. They don’t want to rely on the morning paper for their up-to-date information. They don’t want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what’s important. Data may show that young people are not reading newspapers as much as their predecessors, but it doesn’t show they don’t want news. In fact, they want a lot of news, just faster news of a different kind and delivered in a different way. The challenge, however, is to deliver that news in ways consumers want to receive it. A recent study of younger children (van den Broek et al, 2003) finds analogies between the comprehension of print and television texts in young children, and demonstrates that they have a much greater capacity for inferential reading and understanding causal relations than is usually assumed. Much of this comprehension development occurs between the ages of five and eleven, a period during which children tend to be more pliable and susceptible to the kind of media (and content) they access frequently and are acquainted to. However, psychologists also recognize that children’s comprehension and processing of television content depends very much ‘mental effort’ they invest (Salomon, 1983). This study’s would see if this comprehension ability of content and amount of mental effort would be achieved if children invest them in newspapers. The study’s main focus would be basically on finding children’s perception to the creation and production of children newspapers specifically designed to fit their media needs, which overtime would become a necessary human activity as they grow. What do children want to know, and where will they go to get it? They want to know new things; they want these new things to be interested. They want it exactly when they want it, easily, fun and in an interactive way. Children want a story told to them, not just in what happened, but why it happened. They want news that speaks to them personally, that affects their lives. They don’t just want to know how events in the North-east will affect the presidential election; they want to know what it will mean at their playgrounds. They don’t just want to know about terrorism, but what it means about the safety of their schools. And they want the option to go out and get more information, or to seek a contrary point of view. And finally, they want to be able to use the information in a larger community – to talk about, to debate, to question, and even to meet the people who think about the world in similar or different ways. Print versions can obviously satisfy many of these needs, and the history of our print industry shows that this can be done. Technology has traditionally been an asset to the newspaper business. It has in the past allowed improvement in printing, and aided in the collation and transmission of news faster and cheaper. So of all the trials that face newspapers in the 21st century, technological advancement (which gave rise to new media) can be used to improve the existing forms of media rather than lead to their outright demise. CHAPTER 3
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