Strength in Numbers

By Jim Abbott

First Published: Summer 2007

Adolescents are changeable and fickle in their desires ... cannot bear being slighted, and are indignant if they imagine themselves unfairly treated.”

The researcher quoted above believed he understood the adolescent mind. Since our founding 45 years ago, the NAA Foundation has believed that we have some understanding about reaching adolescents. Our research supports the findings of the author of the above quote.

We believe that our major programs – Newspaper In Education, youth content and student newspapers – all help to reach those changeable and fickle adolescents.

Newspaper In Education programs deliver newspapers to students in schools for use as alternative textbooks. Youth content in newspapers strives to reach adolescents right where they are. And student journalism actively involves adolescents in the production of news.

Changeable and fickle? Oh, yes! Today’s adolescents want news, but they want it delivered on their terms and in their preferred methods. To address this changing demographic, the NAA Foundation has created a task force. The charge to this group is to create a blueprint newspapers can use to develop multiplatform delivery systems to reach those changeable and fickle adolescents.

If you have never experienced the wrath of teens who believe they have been unfairly treated, count yourself lucky. It is a fury not to take lightly. Our most recent research study focused on the role of teen content in developing future readers. One of the messages we heard most clearly in that research was teens’ desire for an “authentic voice” in the newspaper.

In short, teens prefer to hear from teens. If you want to set off a firestorm of protest, try writing as if you were a teen. They see through that charade in a heartbeat. They want to know what other teens have to say and they want this information delivered in multiple ways.

“Lifelong Readers: The Role of Teen Content” (2006) also clearly demonstrated that the more ways we involve teens in the newspaper today, the more likely they are to become young adult readers of our products – print, digital and other. That reinforces another statement by the researcher who opened this column: “We are what we do often … habit.”

That study underscores the notion of habit that we first reported in “Growing Lifelong Readers” (2004): The more often teens use the newspaper, the more likely they will be to become lifelong readers. And our 2002 research, “Measuring Success,” noted that the more often young people use the newspaper in school, the greater the improvement in their test scores.

All of our research reports are downloadable free of charge on our Web site, www.naafoundation.org. Simply click on “Reports and Publications.”

Perhaps the most interesting observation that can be made by looking at all of our research reports is the compounding nature of elements in the creation of a reading habit. Using newspapers in the classroom generates future readers. Reading content by, for and about teens generates future readers. Working on a school newspaper generates future readers. Having parents who promote newspaper reading generates future readers.

However, having two of those elements in play generates more future readers than any one element alone. All of them combined become an unstoppable force in developing a lifelong newspaper reading habit.

As we work to reach these changeable and fickle adolescents, we need to create as many forces as possible, delivered in as many ways as possible, to foster that lifelong reading habit. Oh, and by the way – the researcher I have been quoting? Aristotle.

NAA Foundation Vice President Jim Abbott can be reached at 571.366.1006 or james.abbott@naa.org.