INVESTIGATING THE NEWS SEEKING BEHAVIOR OF YOUNG ADULTS.

This study investigated the news-seeking and browsing behaviours of young adults, partly in the context of everyday life information seeking (ELIS), in order to explore their perceptions of and attitudes towards print and online news media. The study is significant because traditional print newspapers face a steady decline in their readership with the growth of free online content. Therefore, it is important to understand the online news-seeking behaviours of young adults to try and predict changes and trends in this field. A qualitative (interpretivist) approach was adopted and twenty university students were interviewed. Findings indicate that, contrary to expectations, print newspapers were still favoured by young people in this sample and the most successful online news disseminators were the ones who have attached themselves to a popular website. Finally, the impact of newspaper reading and publishing trends on library reading rooms is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]