1. Media Source Survey
How does social media effect the
way college students receive
relevant and important news and
information?
Nate Prince
Jeremy Parmley
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2. Introduction
Motivation- Information comes to people in
different forms: Television, Internet, Radio, News
paper and Magazines. In today’s fast paced and
technologically advanced world, main stream
media makes its way into society rapidly with the
use of the mediums listed above. College students
seem to spend a lot of their time on social
networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace,
Twitter and others.

3. Introduction
• Importance- The statistics of this survey
will be important to communication and
media studies research to give an idea as to
what forms of media are most commonly
used and what effects social media has on
the way we receive news and where people
will be getting their news in the future.

4. Literature Review
College students have been studied with the use of
EDUCAUSE and eMarketer (internet marketing
and surveyors) to find out how much time college
students spend on social networking services. The
study was conducted by an internet website group
called Social Media optimization.com; after
conducting their online surveys, it was determined
out of 44 colleges and universities during 2006,
2007, and 2008, that twice as many students used
social networking in 2008 than did in 2006.

5. Literature Review
• Another survey conducted by Fox Business.com
(2011) states that social networking sites such as
Facebook, Linkedin, and twitter are now being used
for college students as a way to find jobs. “28% of
college students plan on seeking employment using
LinkedIn, up from 5% from last year's survey. More
than 7% said they plan to use Facebook to look for a
career post-graduation.” Not only are students using
social networks to communicate, they are now able to
job search. Social networking also does a great deal of
networking making it much more than just social
entertainment.

6. Literature Review
• Possibilities in the future
Today news, sports/entertainment, social networking, and literature,
can all be found on the World Wide Web, and the World Wide Web
can be found through various technologies; smart phones, computers,
handheld devices such as the Ipad, all are able to access and download
information from the internet. With social networking becoming more
than just social entertainment, the future for it may contain many other
additions. Social media is becoming more and more of a reality. Social
identities are being formed and with downloadable applications that
can do a range of things such as keep track of your credit card
purchases, your weight and body fat, and a alarm clock that goes along
with your calendar are all things that go beyond social media and it is
with you at all times.

7. Expectations
• Based on our literature review, we have
determined that college students use the internet
far more than any other form of media to collect
news and information. We also researched that
social networking seems to be a common and
highly used form of entertainment and it is
becoming a means of lifestyle.

8. Expectations
• We would expect to see that the majority
people receive their news from the television
and internet, with a small segment using
social media for news.
• Most people will answer that they expect to
see more people using internet and social
media for news in 5 years, and only a few
using the radio or newspaper.

9. Study Design/Methods
• Surveys- Survey research is a method for
collecting and analyzing social data highly
structured and often very detailed interviews or
questionnaires in order to obtain information from
large numbers of respondents in order to obtain
information from large numbers of respondents to
be representative of a specific population. (p.37
Media and Communication Research Methods)

10. Study Design/Methods
• To find our data we decided to go with the survey
method because it was cheap, less time
consuming, and we had plenty of people at hand to
ask questions. For our surveys we used Facebook
“question”; “question” is an online survey that
allows you to set up the questions you want to ask
and provide the options to be selected. The
question is then sent out to your network on
Facebook, in this case the University of Southern
Maine, and your results are sent back to you.

11. Survey Design/ Methods
• For this study we used surveys as well as
interviews.
• We surveyed 45 students at USM as well as
used the Question feature on the social
media site Facebook (using only the results
from responders who are in college) to
determine how people got their news.

12. Survey Design/Methods
The surveys asked about how people’s main
methods of getting news and what
secondary news sources they use. It also
asked where people thought they would be
getting the majority of their news in 5 years
and where they were getting their news 5
years ago.

13. Interview Design/Methods
We then interviewed 5 of the responders, who all
answered differently to the question “What is your
primary source for receiving news?” to find more
information as to why they used the news sources
they did as well as to find out what types of news
they were interested in and how important news is
to them.

14. Survey Results
What is your primary source for receivng news?
0
5
10
15
20
25
Internet
News Sites:
21
Television:
10
Radio: 4 Social
Media: 8
Newspaper:
2
Other: 0

15. Facebook Question Results
• The results from the Facebook Question were very similar
to the results from the surveys
• Only counting responses from people in college, which
totaled 33, the results showed:
- 15 get their news from the internet
- 8 get their news from television
- 8 get their news from social media sites
- 2 get their news from the newspaper
- 0 get their news from the radio or other

16. Survey Results
What is your secondary source for receiving news?
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Internet
News Sites
13
Television: 13 Radio: 4 Social Media:
12
Newspaper: 4 Other: 0

17. Survey Results
What was your primary source for receiving news 5 years
ago?
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Internet
News Sites:
11
Television:
17
Radio: 7 Social
Media: 2
Newspaper:
8
Other: 0

18. Survey Results
What do you think will be your primary source for
receiving news 5 years from now?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Internet
News Sites:
25
Television:
8
Radio: 2 Social
Media: 10
Newspaper:
0
Other: 0

19. Survey Results
• What about real-life, world-changing news?
• The survey also asked where the responder first
heard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks as well as
where they first heard about Osama bin Laden’s
death
• This is a relative comparison that shows how we
really receive important, breaking information
versus the way way we did 10 years ago

20. Survey Results
Where did you first hear about the 9/11 terrorist attacks?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Internet News Sites: 0
Television: 27
Radio: 9
Social Media: 0
Newspaper: 0
Friend/Relative: 9

21. Survey Results
Where did you first hear about the death of Osama
bin Laden?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Internet News Sites: 5
Television: 4
Radio: 0
Social Media: 29
Newspaper: 2
Friend/Relative: 5

22. Interview Results
After conducting the interviews, it is very
apparent that the main reason people choose
one source of news over another is
convenience. It seems that the source that is
available around one’s personal schedule
(or the ability to be available anytime) is
what they choose to use.

23. Interview Results
• For example, the person we interviewed that gets
his news from the newspaper has time before class
in the morning to sit down at breakfast and
actually read the paper, while the person who
watches the news on TV every night has her
evenings free. The person who listens to the radio
is extremely busy and is only able to get news in
the car on the way to work. The people who use
the internet and social media prefer the fact that
they can access the news on their own time, and
do not have to stick to a set schedule.

24. Interview Results
• Another interesting fact was the way
people perceive the word “news”.
Everyone interviewed assumed news
only referred to local, national, or global
news. When further questioned about
what social news meant to them, and
how it important it is in their lives,
everyone answered that it was at least
nearly as important as other news.

25. Interview Results
• Of course, the main way all of the
interviewees receive social news is
social media. Therefore, the methods
we choose to receive news also
depends on what type of news we are
looking for.

26. Conclusion
Our results show us that while social media is
not the primary way people receive news, it
definitely plays a big role in the way people
obtain information. We came to the
conclusion that people do not consciously
realize that they are actually getting news
when they use social media sites, but they
actually play a large role in the way we
receive and process information, as was the
case with the way the news of Osama bin
Laden’s death spread rapidly on Facebook,
Twitter, etc.

27. Conclusion
• Based on our findings it is apparent that
social media sites will continue to grow
as sources for information, especially
among college students. Though they
will most likely never replace actual
news sites as places for concrete, more
often than not, the first a place a
breaking story will surface will be in
social media

28. References
• http://social-media-optimization.com/2008/09/college-students-use-of-social-networks/
• http://www.foxbusiness
.com/personal-finance/2011/04/13/college-students-using-social-media-job-search/
• http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/17/it
• http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2010_Survey_FullReport1.pdf
• http://mashable.com/2010/09/07/next-5-years-social-media/
• Berger, A. A. (2011). Media and Commmunication Research Methods . Thousand Oaks,
California 91320: SAGE Publications Inc.