Newspaper Reading Patterns of Students at Bath Spa University

University Degree Education and Teaching

Media Analysis

College

By Tom Middleditch

MC1002

Introduction

In order to carry out my media analysis I have selected the topic of newspapers. Newspapers are a form of media that communicate with the general public and displays what they believe to be critical information in order to let their readers know what is going on in the world or local community. Newspapers give the general public the opportunity to make decisions and form opinions, and read everyday by the majority of people in Great Britain. There are two main types of newspaper broadsheets and tabloids…

I’m going to investigate whether students at Bath Spa University College read newspapers on a regular basis, and if so whether they favour tabloids or broadsheets.

Much is publicised about students not being as intellectual as they used to be, and as an article in The Telegraph December 1999 suggests they are all ‘tabloid reading couch potatoes’. I wanted to find out the portrayal the media gives of students was true, and was interested to see how many students if any read broadsheet newspapers. From a personal point of view I also thought it would be interesting to see what my fellow students read in comparison to me, and to see the difference in reading patterns between male and female students.

In order to find out this information I needed to decide on the methodology I was going to use. I therefore did some research on the different types, and after careful consideration decided the most relevant method of media analysis would be face to face interviews. I did consider audience observation, but then realised the results would not be so accurate. why??

The interviews I carry out are going to be short and to the point, and are going to consist of just 4 questions. The main reason for this is because research shows that if surveys/interviews are too long winded often participants become bored, lose concentration and are therefore more likely to give inaccurate answers. By using interviews I also have the advantage of actually interacting with my audience which also means they are more likely to be truthful * quote*

Advantages of Face to face interviews from media essay

Main Aims

Before undertaking my piece of research, I had three main aims I wanted to achieve. These aims were:

Find out whether the article suggesting all students are ‘tabloid readers’ is justified.

Find out the most popular newspapers amongst students at Bath Spa University, and the difference in reading patterns between male and females.

Find out how often students at Bath Spa University read newspapers and the difference between how often male students read them in relation to females.

Method

Firstly I had to make the decision whether ...

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Main Aims

Before undertaking my piece of research, I had three main aims I wanted to achieve. These aims were:

Find out whether the article suggesting all students are ‘tabloid readers’ is justified.

Find out the most popular newspapers amongst students at Bath Spa University, and the difference in reading patterns between male and females.

Find out how often students at Bath Spa University read newspapers and the difference between how often male students read them in relation to females.

Method

Firstly I had to make the decision whether to handout the questionnaires and collect the data later, or ask the questions myself and record the data in a tally chart. I believed that the most appropriate form of recording the information would be to use tally charts. The main reason I came to this conclusion was firstly because if the participants have to fill out a questionnaire on there own accord there is a risk of them getting the wrong idea of the question, and therefore a possibility of answering incorrectly. Secondly it is more likely that if I handed out questionnaires, the majority of people would not to do them whereas if I’m asking the questions it’s a lot quicker and I can be sure that the correct amount of students participate. The use of tally charts also makes it easier to analyse the difference in reading patterns between male’s and females because I can use separate tally charts for each sex.

Before I designed the questionnaire I decided on the amount of people I was going to interview. I decided to do an equal amount of male and female participants. One of my main aims was going to see the difference in reading patterns between male and female students at the university. This therefore meant I needed to interview an equal number of each sex in order to make the research fair. I wanted to choose a multiple of 100 in order to be able to show the results in a percentage, as I thought that would be the best way of clearly displaying the results. I also believed that this would make it easier for me to analyse the results, and draw up conclusions. I therefore decided to interview 20 people consisting of 10 Males and 10 Females. I believed 20 participants to be an adequate number of people. Although the results may well be more accurate if I was to interview say 100 people I thought 20 was enough to give me appropriate data to analyse. I also made the decision of asking students from Bath Spa University at random. I decided on randomly selecting people as I thought this would make the results more valid. I also believed participants would be more likely to take it seriously and therefore be more truthful than people I knew would. My piece of research was titled ‘Newspaper reading patterns of students at Bath Spa University College’. I therefore wanted to make sure that all a participants of the interview were actually students at the university. In order to do this before interviewing people I asked them an initial question of ‘Are you studying here at Bath Spa?’

Once I had decided the method and the amount of people I was going to interview it was time to start designing my questionnaire. As mentioned in the introduction I wanted to make the questions short and brief in order to cause as little confusion as possible.

The first question was an obvious but important one and I didn’t even need to ask the participant. It was to find out whether the student was male or female. This question would prove clinical later on when analysing the difference in reading patterns between the two sexes at Bath Spa University. The second question was to find out on average how often students read a newspaper.

Question number 3 was to find out whether the student tended to read tabloid or broadsheets newspapers, the answer to this question would enable me to see if the article printed in The Telegraph about students being ‘Tabloid readers’ was justified.

The fourth and final question was to find out the most popular newspaper amongst students in the college. I asked the question ‘What is your favoured newspaper?’ Then listed the most popular papers in the country, along with the option ‘other’ in case any one read a specialist paper or a paper I had left off the list.

Results Analysis

Figure * shows the results of the first question ‘What is your sex?’ As indicated in the method section, I decided to interview 10 male and 10 female students. Therefore the results of the question were conclusive and as the pie chart concludes 50% of the participants were male and the other 50% female. The results of question 2 signify that 30% of males read a newspaper every day compared to a mere 10% of women. The information gathered from question 3 also indicates that on average 30% of females (compared to 10% of males) only read a newspaper once a week. When I had collected the results I then decided to work out the average number of days that a male and a female student reads a newspaper. I did this by adding all the numbers together and dividing that total by 10. For example for the average amount of days a male student reads a newspaper I did 1+2+2+3+5+6+7+7+7 / 10. These averages showed that generally male students read newspapers more than four times a week (4.3 to be exact) and the female students read newspapers less than 3 times a week (2.9).

The results from question 3 answers my first main aim, which was to find out whether the article suggesting all students are ‘tabloid readers’ is justified. AS the results in figure * indicate the article was justified, as 85% of students (90% of males and 80% of females) did in fact admit to generally reading tabloid newspapers. Whilst a mere 15% (10% of males and 20% of females) preferred to read broadsheet newspapers.

As displayed in figure * you can see that amongst the male students the most popular newspaper was The Sun with 40% of the male students I interviewed choosing this as their favoured newspaper. Whilst amongst the females The Daily Mail was the most popular with 30% of females preferring it to any other newspaper. Another interesting conclusion that can be drawn up from the results show is that a staggering 70% of male students read the ‘red top’ newspapers (The Sun, Star and Mirror) Even though the Mirror has now changed its cover to a black top as it wants to be more like the Daily Express and the Daily Mail, the impression I got was that people still consider it to be in the same category as The Sun and The Star.

Self Evaluation

Although I feel I have conducted this piece of research in a theoretical and efficient way, I do however believe there various ways in which I could have improved it. If I was to carry out this analysis again the first improvement I would make is the size of the investigation. In order to get more accurate and valid results I would have liked to interview 100 people. Even though I stated in the method section that I thought 20 participants was an adequate amount I now feel that in order to get a wider perspective of views I could have in fact interviewed more people. Another aspect that might have affected the results was the timing of my interviewing. As I did all the interviews at the same time, it is therefore a possibility that the students that participated in my research particpate in the same or similar subjects. This could well mean they have similar reading patterns. I know this is only a possibility but it is something that must be taken into consideration, when analysing the results. To improve this I could have done interview at different times of the day and week. That also brings me to the point, that I could have well had more questions in my interview. For instance what subject area the participant is part of. I feel it would be interesting to see if students studying the same subjects have the same or similar reading patterns. Although I feel my decision to keep the interview short and brief was justified, I do however acknowledge the fact that more questions would have improved the study.

The target audience for my study was students at Bath Spa University. If I were to carry out this study on a larger scale, it would be interesting to make comparisons between the reading patterns of different universities, different ages and even different social groups. For example, a comparison between teachers and students would be extremely interesting.

Despite suggesting all these improvements I could have made, I do still feel that my research is valid and adequate for this particular study and I am pleased with the overall outcome.