Pew Poll: Cable, Local TV Are Tops for Political Campaign News; Few Turn to Social Network Sites

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Making Headlines

Pew Poll: Cable, Local TV Are Tops for Political Campaign News; Few Turn to Social Network Sites

“In this campaign season, the social networks have nothing on the news networks.

A new survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds cable news most frequently cited as a regular source of political campaign news, followed by local TV news, network news, the Internet and finally local newspapers.

Twitter, YouTube and Facebook were at the bottom of the list. But with only Republicans choosing a presidential nominee this time around, fewer people are interested in following campaign news in any medium.” [read entire story from the AP here]

Youths Are Watching, But Less Often on TV

“Television is America’s No. 1 pastime, with an average of four hours and 39 minutes consumed by every person every day. But more and more young people are tuning in elsewhere. Americans ages 12 to 34 are spending less time in front of TV sets, even as those 35 and older are spending more, according to research that will be released on Thursday by Nielsen, a company that tracks media use. The divide along a demographic line reveals the effect of Internet videos, social networks, mobile phones and video games – in short, all the alternatives to the television set that are taking up growing slices of the American attention span. Young people are still watching the same shows, but they are streaming them on computers and phones to a greater degree than their parents or grandparents do.”[read more from The New York Times]

Ithaca College Goes to Shangri-La to Teach Media Literacy
Project Look Sharp at Ithaca College is working with educators in Bhutan to integrate media literacy throughout the country. Bhutan, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas, is the last nation in the world to receive television. Chris Sperry, the director of curriculum and staff development for Project Look Sharp, will be in Bhutan Jan. 27-Feb. 3, while associate professor of psychology and founding executive director of Project Look Sharp Cyndy Scheibe will travel there in early March. The government of Bhutan has already drafted a media literacy curriculum, and is teaming with Project Look Sharp to assist with its implementation. Sperry will post to a blog that he hopes will also serve as an interactive opportunity for both Bhutanese and American teachers and students to question and learn from one another. [learn more]

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