Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the NewsOur democracy is on the brink of a crisis, David Mindich argues in Tuned Out. As more and more young people turn their backs on political news, America is seeing the greatest decline in informed citizenship in its history. The implications for overall civic engagement are also enormous.Crisscrossing the country, from Boston to New Orleans and Los Angeles, Mindich has interviewed scores of young Americans about how they keep up with the news: young professionals, college students, and even some preteens. What he discovers is a group that knows less, cares less, votes less, and follows the news less than their elders do and less than their elders did. Noting that the problem is reaching almost unfathomable proportions (the median viewer age of network television news is now 60), Mindich explores the roots of the problem, including the powerful lure of entertainment, which in recent years has grown exponentially--from MTV and ESPN to Nakednews.com--far overshadowing serious news programs. The challenge, Mindich says, is to create a society in which young people feel that reading quality journalism is worthwhile. Some newspapers have responded to the problem by pandering, adding Britney Spears and subtracting John Ashcroft. But in trying to make news matter to young people, the author notes, they make it matter to no one. Tuned Out offers a number of innovative responses to this problem, from requiring every channel to carry news as part of its children's programming to transforming college admissions policies, to changing journalism itself.Written in the spirit of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, this book illuminates a serious problem in our society, a problem that will only grow worse as older Americans retire and the "tuned out" young must take their place as leaders. |
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Contents
1 A Generational Shift | 1 |
2 How Tuned Out Are They? | 18 |
Striptease News and the Shifting Balance Between Need and Want | 34 |
Who Follows the News and Why | 60 |
5 Television the Internet and the Eclipse of the Local | 77 |
6 The Decline of General News and the Deliberative Body | 95 |
How to Tune Back In | 112 |
Other editions - View all
Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News David T. Z. Mindich No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
Aaron Harper Alicia Keys American Idol asked audience available from http://www.people-press.org Bishop Perry Bowling Brandeis University broadcast Bush Carpini and Keeter chapter Chideya cited citizens civic involvement cohort College Columbia Journalism Review consumers consumption correlation David debate decline Delli Carpini democracy Democratic despite discussion Downie Jr e-mail editors election engaged entertainment example Farai Chideya follow Frankel habits Ibid important interest Iraq John John Ashcroft journalists Kaiser Kanon Cozad kids Knopf Kovach and Rosenstiel Kraut less magazines Max Frankel median age Mindich Mirror Center newspaper readership October older Orleans party percent Personal interview Pew Research Center political poll presidential Putnam radio readers Robert Salzfass September 11 Social society stories Sunstein talk television tion Tom Daschle trend Trumpeter Swan tuned U.S. Census Bureau United University Press viewers vote watched Web-posted report wrote York young
References to this book
Ending the Affair: The Decline of Television Current Affairs in Australia Graeme Turner Limited preview - 2005 |