Political Engagement and the Audience for News: Lessons from Spain

Abstract

As fewer young Americans attend to newspapers and television newscasts, their levels of political participation have declined, along with their trust in political institutions and in the mass media (see Buckingham,1997, for a summary). U.S. television news has lost half of its young adult viewers since the 1960s and newspapers have lost an even larger share as part of a longer trend in declining readership that began in the 1920s. In surveys political participation does coincide with attention to news, especially newspapers, and young citizens have voted in declining numbers as their readership levels have fallen. These trends cannot sound heartening to the major U.S. news organizations or to those concerned with the informed citizenry of U.S. democracy. The trends have also been confirmed by field studies. One study based on life histories recounting experiences with newspapers (Barnhurst & Wartella, 1991) found that young U.S. citizens attending college did report difficulty with becoming committed newspaper readers, just as the survey data suggest. Among the many reasons they had a hard time committing to being newspaper readers, one seems the most important: They found the stories did not touch on the areas of civic activity they encountered in their daily lives. Although the newspaper retains its meaning as a symbol of adulthood, the young adults often failed to sustain the family ritual experienced in childhood. A second study on television news (Barnhurst & Wartella, 1998) found that college students who turned away from newspapers did not appear to substitute another news medium to inform themselves as citizens. Although they held television news in minimal regard, they still credited the first major news story they remembered from television with making them feel part of the larger national community. In spite of this fairly strong generation effect from watching news, many of the young adult participants considered newscasts primarily a form of entertainment, and only a few mentioned any other source far news, such as radio or the Internet. Surveys and field work confirm that, although some older Americans may experience a strong need for news, the younger generation does not share that appetite. A growing minority of young Americans get along without what the major news organizations serve up daily, and those who do pay attention, especially to television news, do so without attaching great significance to the news as the Fourth Estate in U.S. political life. The view of the news arena as a space where the public sphere operates is declining among the young citizenry. Because of the clear impact on the civic role for news businesses, with the potential to weaken political participation, the trends among young Americans have aroused debate about the future of democracy (see Barnhurst & Wartella,1991). Carried on without reference to other countries, the debate raised questions requiring comparative research abroad. Are the increasingly negative experiences with news among young citizens peculiar to the United States? Or do the changes pertain as well to young adults in other contemporary societies? To search for answers, this monograph presents the results of two qualitative studies abroad that closely replicate the U.S. research, examining newspaper and then television news experiences that college students recount in life history narratives. Spain was selected as a comparative case for several reasons. The most compelling comes from data on the young audience for news: Among Western democracies, only in Spain is news viewership reaching an almost universal national audience and newspaper circulation growing among young citizens. Spain provides a setting within another advanced country that differs from the United States in most particulars: Spain's development came recently, as did its return to democracy. Besides their differing language and parliamentary monarchy, young Spaniards grew up in close-knit extended families and attended highly structured schools that emphasized rote learning. …