Goldberg Alex JCOM 332 Vox Pop
News Consumption Down in College Students
College students are relying on social media as their primary source for news.
By Alex Goldberg, the Daily Emerald
University of Oregon students stated that they do not check to see what is going on in the news very often. When they do check, however, it is often unintentional when news pops up on their Instagram and Tiktok feeds.
Drake Preta, a freshman studying business, said that he receives most of his news from Tiktok, specifically the outlets CNN and ABC. When asked how often he checks up on the news, he responded, “maybe twice a week.”
Sameeha Chowdhura, a junior majoring in psychology, also said that she mainly gets her news from Instagram. “I don’t really seek out the news, I just look at what comes up on my feed, which is mainly Apple News and CNN,” she said.
Students do have strong opinions about what the most important attribute of a news source is for them. Overwhelmingly, they said that reliability and trustworthiness are the most important attributes.
Carson Scott, a freshman, said, “for me, trust is the most important thing.” Scott, similar to his fellow students, relies mainly on social media for his news consumption.
When asked further about the importance of the reliability of a news source, Preta said, “actual numbers and data are what make a source trustworthy to me.”
Chowdhura had similar sentiments to Scott and Preta. “As someone who is studying psychology, accuracy and facts are very important to me,” Chowdhura said. “Research backed by facts means a source is reliable to me.”
While the frequency of news consumption and interest in the news seems to be down in college students, there still remains a prevalent opinion that news sources need to be trustworthy and reliable.