THIS is in response to an opinion by David Christy, “Do young people really read?” (NST, Oct 20)
With all due respect, the columnist’s opinions are not rooted in research of current trends. I speak in my capacity as a former media practitioner.
A more detailed research would have shown that there are studies on Malaysian youths’ news consumption habits, notably in 2011 and 2013 by local universities, and last year’s media consumption report by Nielsen’s, a respected market research firm.
Christy, instead, opted to use “anecdotal evidence”, not the most reliable when presenting such a strong position.
What do these studies show? Yes, youths do indeed read newspapers less. This is supported by the World Association of News Publishers’ study that shows that the Internet is youths’ primary source of information. The writer has presented a worldview carried by those sentimental for print media, lamenting its decline.
While I sympathise with him and my fellow newsmen, it is also worth noting that media upheavals are not new.
Over the centuries, as we began to develop newer media technologies, older ones are always seen as in “danger” of losing out to newer forms deemed less intellectual or rigorous.
The printed form losing out to radio, for instance, radio to television, television to the Internet. It is a technological cycle; we are merely riding its most recent iteration.
The writer presented Internet media as guilty of perpetuating cursory reading or “headline readers”. To be fair, he points out that this is a long-standing issue even with newspapers when passersby need only glance at the newspaper headline to get an idea of current affairs.
This doesn’t sound unfamiliar, with former television sceptics once deriding broadcast media for reducing important news to images and sound bites.
Yet video, and now, YouTube by extension, continues to be a popular media form. This should be evident in how quickly “traditionally-print” news media are adopting the medium to survive the changing consumer market.
What the writer is pointing out is the human condition, not media forms.
This is not to say that we should not cherish the printed form. Regis Debray, a French philosopher, academic and journalist has, in his essay Socialism: A Life Cycle, described the printed form (which he terms graphosphere) as a “medium that accommodates for articulation and argumentation, if not encourages it”.
As many a writer or journalist would know, when you write, you are forced to articulate into coherence.
When you read, you are applying comprehension to engage the text and understand it, which can make reading a potentially challenging process. The printed form is about contesting with ideas.
Like a book or magazine, reading the newspaper is a curated experience of its own.
Every section has selected stories to reflect daily shifts. The Internet, for better or worse, has compressed the way we use time, and consequentially, how we consume information.
Newspapers too, as an industry, need to evolve. This is not exclusively a Malaysian problem; it is a worldwide journalism problem, with even established institutions like The New York Times experimenting with new ways of presenting the news without compromising on its journalistic history of integrity and being a paper of record.
It would be good to reflect how, as a newsman, one can use modern media forms to better serve the public.
While Utusan Malaysia may have died because of its political associations, it was also a victim to institutionalised thinking. It persisted in the printed form while refusing, or lacking funds, to diversify its media business beyond newspapers and magazines.
It also needs to be said that the current discourse is muddled by platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook, where fake news thrives. If people don’t consume the news, it is either because they do not trust the institutions or believe that public information should be free.
The latter is somewhat more democratic, but less conscious of the fact that news production is not charity — it is a business and requires money to run, be it by diversifying the business into other areas, exploring new mediums or relying on advertisers and those with funds.
To answer the writer’s question, “Do young people read?” Yes. But maybe not in a way that one is conventionally used to. Even if they are not reading, they are consuming information in ways that are different, but not necessarily less impactful.
Are they involved in civic and democratic development? Are they engaging in thoughtful discourse? Yes, a resounding yes. The acquisition of knowledge needn’t be tethered to the printed form, and it shouldn’t be.
AZIFF A.
Kuala Lumpur