UK

No news is bad news

By team ⋅ March 27, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Guardian, 28th January

Research by the magazine, Times Higher Education, has revealed a frightening estimate that less than 5% of academics regularly buy a daily paper and ‘very few’ read a Sunday publication. Gerard Kelly, the editor, admitted that precise figures were difficult to obtain because the proportion was approximated on focus group research.

Kelly claims that new media is to blame with many academics look at newspaper websites. However, the study suggests something more profound when considered alongside other research. British Social Attitudes findings show that ‘quality’ papers have not lost readers over the last 25 years and that graduates, their natural market, have increased significantly in number. In fact, the number of graduates reading qualities has fallen from 50% to 20% since 1983.

While some blame the papers, others have started to look at universities to explain this decrease. Students, once encouraged to read around their subjects and be engaged with public affairs, are now focussed increasingly on specialised and esoteric studies. The attitude that getting a degree is the only ticket to a good job seems to have alarming implications for our political culture.