What your media preference says about you

During an interview last week, I was asked how I get my news.  This was an easy question for me: Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Slate, The New York Times (online), The Daily Tar Heel (in print) and sometimes digg.com.

I thought nothing of the question, or of my response.  But as I analyzed my interview, waiting to hear if I had been selected for the position, I wondered what our news sources say about our personal character.

It has long been said that traditional media appeal to the older generation, the people who grew up reading the newspaper with their morning coffee. Is this a reflection or a symptom of their greater voter turnout?

My grandparents subscribe to the newspaper. They have a leisurely breakfast each morning and flip through the pages of The Washington Post. Then before bed, they watch the local television news. They are both solid republicans who are politically active and participate in political campaigns.


My mother subscribed to The Charlotte Observer for years, until she started her own business and began working 90 hours per week.  Now she gets her news primarily through interactions with customers and from my stepdad, who always shares the latest tweets from CNN.

Despite their opposite political opinions, they are both somewhat politically active, meaning they vote in every election, even the local ones. 

My stepmom, who is 20 years younger than my mom, gets her news from Facebook. She only cares about "reconnecting" with her high school friends online. I asked why she has never subscribed to a newspaper, and she said that she wouldn't read it even if she had it.  It's not a matter of saving time or money; it's simply a lack of interest.

She has never been registered to vote and probably never will be.

I can't help but wonder if age is not the only factor in the disparity between voter turnout. Are people who rely on traditional media more likely to be politically active than their counterparts who prefer new media?  Or is age really the only difference?

Using these questions, I began subtly analyzing my friends.  One of them is a political science major who is the definition of political activity.  He said that he reads The Washington Post in print, as well as the print edition of The Daily Tar Heel. He also said that social media is, in his opinion, not news.

Another girl knows little about politics, save what her uncle, a politician himself, tells her. She said she only pays attention to news when other people talk about it. Even then she relies on what people are saying in person or on Facebook.

By no means do these responses answer my questions about the correlation between medium and political activity, but I would still argue that how we get our news says a lot about our character, particularly our political efficacy.

I haven't found much research on the question, but I think it's worth exploring.  But, I guess my interviewer liked my mix of old and new media, because I got the job!