New Foundation Research: Teens and Online News

Marina Hendricks — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:57:00 GMT

The NAA Foundation and the Media Management Center at Northwestern University teamed up in early 2009 to explore and put to the test better ways to match the online news preferences of young people. "Teens Know What They Want From Online News: Do You?" is the result.

For this research study, we developed prototypes of home pages and story-level pages, then tested them in focus groups across the United States. Teens' responses were remarkably and overwhelmingly consistent, regardless of market size or location.

"In our focus groups, it was clear that teens were not looking for a youth news site that focuses mostly on lifestyle and entertainment content," says Jeanne Fox-Alston, vice president of the NAA Foundation. "What they really want are news sites that do news well - not dumb the news down or pretend that the writers of the site are experts in teen culture."

Given that teen responses were very similar to those of adults who are light readers, we recommend creating a new type of site - not just for teens, but for all people who lack experience with news and have a limited amount of time to get engaged with it. The answer isn't to dilute the news, but to be bolder.

Want to know more? Register for our free webinar, scheduled for 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern time (1 to 2 p.m. Central) on Thursday, April 23. In this one-hour webinar, you will learn what kind of news Web site would attract and interest teenagers.

Meanwhile, click here for the executive summary and full report on our research study.

Foundation : naa foundation, web sites

New Foundation Research: Teens and Online News