Young people, News, and Technology

With new social media always being created, the way people get their news has changed drastically over the past five years.

College students generally do not read a newspaper. They would rather find news stories online, on Twitter, on Facebook, or on news websites.

One college student that chooses a more traditional means of staying informed is Senior News Editorial Major, Jamison Lamp. Lamp would rather catch the early morning news on television and keep updated with the media as the day progresses.

“I always try to get a hard copy of the Argus Leader from Yeager Hall and read that between classes,” Lamp said.

Lamp recently received an iPad2 for his birthday, “I’m currently enjoying KELOLand’s iPad App, it’s very convenient, I just wish there was more content to browse through, but they just recently released it so there should be more updates to come” Lamp said.

Along with the KELO Land App, Lamp also uses a Washington Post App. “Ever since I’ve had my iPad and all of these news apps, it has really increased my readership of news. I always feel like I am fairly well informed about the news of the day.”

During Lamp’s drive to school he listens to 99.7 or 104.7 and listens to the headlines for their news stories. If he hears something he would like to hear more about, then he goes online to read up on the latest in the news story. Lamp said, “Sometimes I will just be leaving the car to get to class or something and I will hear a tidbit of a head line of a story that I want to hear more about, so I will either look it up on the computer later or see if there is something about it on my iPad Apps.”

Lamp is not a fan of the local news paper, the Brookings Register. “It seems like all of their stories are from the Associated Press. None of them are localized and they are extraordinarily unnecessary. Maybe if they got story ideas from the Associated Press and then localized them, I would me more apt to actually read my hometown newspaper,” Lamp said.

Senior Microbiology Majors Kristen Kludt and Ellen Hublou have a very different view of news. Kludt never gets a chance to watch a television news broadcast because she does not currently have cable at her house. Instead, she will use the Internet to watch video and read top stories. Kludt said, “I generally go to CNN or the Onion. I also have this thing on my computer called iGoogle. It gives me instantly updated stories and if I find something interesting on there I will look it up further online.”

Kludt does not generally use social media to get news because she says most of her friends are in the dark about the latest news. “The last big story I saw on Facebook was when Amy Whinehouse died. A lot of my friends thought that was a big deal,” Kludt said.

Hublou would rather watch a television newscast than find out her news on a social media website like Twitter or Facebook. She even watches Jon Stewart to get some of the top news stories of the day. “I feel that Jon Stewart’s comedic news show is much more accurate than, say, Fox News. I would rather watch news on Comedy Central that is accurate than some stuffy old person news show on Fox News,” Hublou said.

Even though researchers believe that more and more people are getting their news from social media, it seems that things such as television, radio and newspapers are not going to go any where, for now.

Introduction

Nikki Brown is a 22 year old, senior broadcast journalism major at South Dakota State University. She grew up in Brookings, but hopes to move on to bigger and brighter cities after graduation, possibly in the Denver, Colorado area. Besides being a full time student, she works part time at Perkins Restaurant and Bakery as a server and was recently promoted to a Certified Trainer position. She has also just begun an internship at Brookings Radio as their new news intern.

Nikki is an only child, growing up with her mother in Brookings. She attended Medary Elementary for her early education, moving on to the shiny new Mickelson Middle School in the sixth grade. By far she enjoyed high school the most, finding her passion for news and writing on the high school's newspaper staff. After she graduated in 2007, she decided to pursue a degree in Journalism. She wasn't sure where she wanted to go at first, but decided that SDSU would be the perfect place for her.

She's had a few jobs over the years, they include a market surveyor at a telephone call center, a housekeeper at a hotel, and a front desk clerk at another hotel.

Brown is taking a few interesting classes this semester. She decided to take French for her last semester and after the first week of class, is seeming to be a fairly difficult class. In previous years, she took German for her degree and often finds herself answering questions in German rather than French.