ASTUDYONNEWSPAPERREADINGHABITSANDTHE FUTUREEXISTENCEOFNEWSPAPERINDUSTRY
ABSTRACT
Newspaperisasourcethatprovidesinformationaboutacountry'seconomicsituation,sports,games,entertainment,tradeandcommerce.Readingnewspaperasa habitwillwidenone'soutlookandwillenrichone'sknowledge.Thispaperaimstostudyaboutthenewspaperreadinghabitsamongvariousagegroupsofpeopleand survivalofthenewspaperindustry Thepaperalsotriestostudythedemographicprofile,preferenceofthelanguage,interestingsectionsofthepaper Astructured questionnairewascirculatedtocollectinformationfromtherespondentsofAhmedabad.
KEYWORDS:Newspaper,Readinghabit,Ahmedabad,Survival–NewspaperIndustry
Introduction
Newspapersevolvedinthe17thcentury,asinformationsheetsforbusinessmen. InIndiathefirstnewspaperwaspublishedon29thJanuary1780byaBritishman named“JamesAugustusHick”undertheBritishruleandthenameofthepaper was,“TheBengalGazette”or“CalcuttaGeneralAdvertiser”orwascommonly known as the “Hicky ‟ s Gazette”Anewspaper is a periodical publication containingwritteninformationaboutcurrenteventsandisoftentypedinblackink withawhiteorgraybackground.Newspaperisasourcethatprovidesinformationaboutacountry'seconomicposition,politics,sports,games,entertainment, trade and commerce. It also include as opinion materials such as columns, weatherforecasts,reviewoflocalservices,obituaries,birthnotices,crosswords, editorialcartoons,comicstrips,andadvicecolumns.
Reading newspaper as a habit will widen one's outlook and will enrich one's knowledge Newspapers have traditionally been published in print (low-grade paper-newsprint). However, today most newspapers are also published on websites as online or e-newspapers and some have even abandoned their print versions entirely This has made the newspaper publishing industries to think over,therebyacrisisofexistence.Thenewspapersinfuture,asweallthink,newspaperswouldbecomejustaplatformforthebuyersandsellerstogetconnected andtoviewattractiveoffersgivenbycorporatestoselltheirproducts.
th On 24 July 2019, PRINTWEEK INDIA– SomNath Sapru reported on “The futureofNewspapersinIndia”saysthatthereisgrowthinnewspaper&periodicalindustryfrom2001tilldate.Thereare16differentlanguagepublicationsand confirms that the competition is fierce in the industry and earns a substantial profit. Developing economies like India & China has a growing market with ever-growingliteratereadership.
“While newsprint cost has impacted the business, we feel it is imperative to change gears and work towards more unique and innovative brand led offerings,”saidShaliniGupta,VP,Brand&Communication,LokmatMediaGroup. On the contrary, Kamal Krishna –National Head, Media solutions (Print), Mathrubhumifeltthattheimpactwillbemoreinthelong-termthanatpresent. Healsoaddedthat“Itislikelytoput30-40percentadditionalburdenontheprint players”.
Thispaperaimstostudyaboutthenewspaperreadinghabitsamongvariousage groupsofpeople.Thepaperalsotriestostudythedemographicprofile,preference of the language, interesting sections of the newspaper.This paper tries to assessthefutureexistenceofthenewspaperindustry Astructuredquestionnaire wascirculatedtocollectinformationamong144respondentsofAhmedabad.
Objectivesofthestudy
Ÿ Tostudythedemographicprofileoftherespondents
Ÿ Tostudythenewspaperreadinghabitsamongtherespondents
Ÿ Toknowthepreferenceofthelanguageandmediumofreading
Ÿ Toknowthe mostpreferredsectionsofthepaper
Ÿ Toassessthefutureexistenceofnewspaperindustry
Researchmethodology
Thestudyisexploratoryinnature.Primarydatawascollectedwiththehelpof Google forms. It was circulated through WhatsApp, mail and Instagram. The datawascollectedfrom144respondentsofAhmedabad.Thecollecteddatawas tabulatedandthedatawasanalyzedandinterpretedbywayofsimplefrequency andpercentageanalysis.
ResearchGap
Surveysandstudieshavebeenconductedtofindthereader'shabits,preferences, among urban population, among undergraduate students of a particular state, postgraduatestudentsofaparticularuniversity Theauthorwouldliketostudy thedemographicprofileoftherespondentswhoreadnewspapersandwouldlike tofindoutthepreferenceoftherespondentsonprintednewspaperswhencomparedtotheemediumandonthefutureofthenewspaperindustry Thisstudyis restrictedtoAhmedabad.
Limitationofthestudy
The study was conducted only inAhmedabad city of Tamil Nadu. One cannot generalize the finding of the study to the country Since the respondents have filledinthroughGoogleformsitmaybesubjecttopersonalbias.Duetotimeconstraintthedatawascollectedonlyamong144respondents.Theformswerecirculatedamongknownpeople.Soitisaselectivesamplingandnotarandomsampling.
Reviewofliterature
Rani.IandMurugan.k.(2016)inpapertitled“AStudyonReadingHabitsofPG StudentsinSpecialReferencebyAnnaUniversityRegionalCentreinTirunelveli Library Users.” Concluded that second year students visited library daily and usednewspapersandwebsearchedinformationforreadingpurposes.
Dr V N. Nagashetti, &AnandY Kenchakkanavar (2015)evaluated a study on “NewsPaperReadingHabitsamongtheStudentsofMunicipalArtsandCommerceCollege,Laxmeshwar:ASociologicalPerspective.”Thestudywasconducted among 216 students, revealed that most of the undergraduate students dailyreadtheirlocalkannadanewpaperandEnglishnewpapers.Theypreferred libraryasabestplacetoreadthenewspaper
KanwalGurleen Singh& RajneeshArya conducted a survey on the paper titled “A Study of Newspaper Readership Patterns among Urban Population of Punjab”ItwasconcludedthatmostoftherespondentsprefertoreadHindiNewspaperfollowedbyPunjabiNewspaper Itcanbefurtherconcludedfromthestudy that there was no signficant difference in language preferences between Males andFemales.AgewiseanalysisrevealedthatYoungsterspreferredEnglishnewspapers,themiddleagegroup-Hindinewspaperandolderpersons-Punjabinewspapers.TheeducationwiseanalysisshowsthatHindinewspaperwaspreferred by most of the under graduates and graduates while most of the post graduates prefer to read more than one language newspaper The income wise analysis showsnosignificantdifferenceofaveragemeanscoresoflanguagepreferences fordifferentincomegroups.
According to Sanjay Kumar (Indian school of Business) & V.V.S. Sarma (KakatiyaUniversity)in“PerformanceandChallengesofNewspapersinIndia: ACaseStudyonEnglishversusVernacularDailiesinIndia.Theprintindustry operatesinadynamicenvironmentwithreaders ‟ needsandpreferenceschangingcontinuously Insuchanenvironment,itisimperativeforpublisherstoinnovate consistently and also engage and interact with their readers on a real time basis.Thereareaplethoraofopportunitiesthatcouldbenefittheflexibleplayers who can adjust to the changing environment. Going forward we may witness expansion in regional markets and consolidation in established markets with onlythefittestplayerssurvivethechangingenvironment.”
Copyright©2023,IERJ.Thisopen-accessarticleispublishedunderthetermsoftheCreativeCommonsAttribution-NonCommercial4.0InternationalLicensewhichpermitsShare(copyandredistributethematerialinany mediumorformat)andAdapt(remix,transform,andbuilduponthematerial)undertheAttribution-NonCommercialterms.
Table1:Age&GenderWiseAnalysisofRespondents
53.4% of the respondents are male and the remaining is female. 45.83% of the respondents belong to the age group 16-20. 4.86% of respondents are between ageof10&15.
dents spend more than 45 minutes. The age groups of such respondents who spendmoretimeareusuallyabove30years.
Table2:GenderwiseAnalysisofRespondentsBuyingNewspaper
68.75%oftherespondentsbuynewspapersofwhich53.53%arewomen.Itwas alsofoundthattherespondentswhodidnotbuynewspapersreliedonE-medium orTelevision.Onlyveryfewreadnewspaperfromtheirofficeorlibrary
Table5:AnalysisofLanguageofNewspaper
58.39%oftherespondentspreferredEnglishnewspapersandnextpreferredwas theregionallanguageTamil.
Table3:GenderWiseAnalysisofRespondentsFrequencyofReadingNewspaper
Only 42.36% of the respondents read newspapers daily and 4.86% do not read newspapers.
Table6:Analysisofpreferencesofrespondentsonvarioussections
Majority of the respondents prefer to read the headlines as the first preference. Watchingstockmarketprices&Astrologysectionaretheleastpreferredsections bytherespondents.
Table4:GenderWiseAnalysisofTimeSpentonReadingNewspaper
51.82%oftherespondentsspendlessthan15minutesand6.56%oftherespon-
Table6[A]:Age&GenderwiseanalysisofHeadlinesandSportsSection
Respondentsbelongingtotheagegroupbetween16&20givehighpreferencein readingheadlinesandsportssection.
Findings&Conclusion
Therespondentsintheagegroupof16-20wereveryenthusiasticinresponding to the questionnaire. They preferred English as the medium of reading news eitherinemediumorprintmedium.Majorityoftherespondents66.66%i.e.96of 145feltthatnewspaperreadingwasessentialforoneselftoenhancetheirgeneral knowledge,usefulforpreparationforcompetitiveexamsandtoknowaboutcurrentaffairsoftheeconomy 84.03%oftherespondentsopinedthatthenewspaper industrywouldstillsurviveinspiteoftheimpactofemediumandtechnological changes. Some respondents felt that reading printed newspaper gave them full satisfactionwhencomparedtoemediumortelevision,asthereweremanyother
sectionsandnewswhichothermediumwouldnotgive.Respondentsabovethe agegroupof40feltthatPrintedmediumcausenoharmtoeyesevenifreadfor hourstogetherwhencomparedtoe-medium.
REFERENCES
1. SanjayKumar(IndianschoolofBusiness)&V.V.S.Sarma(KakatiyaUniversity)in“ PerformanceandChallengesofNewspapersinIndia:ACaseStudyonEnglishversus VernacularDailiesinIndia“TwelfthAIMSInternationalConferenceonManagement
ISBN:978-81-924713-8-9,TwelfthAIMSInternationalConferenceonManagement
2. KanwalGurleenSingh&RajneeshArya“ASTUDYOFNEWSPAPERREADERSHIP
PATTERNSAMONGURBANPOPULATIONOFPUNJAB”-IncludedintheInternational Serial Directories Indexed & Listed at: Ulrich's Periodicals Directory ©, U.S.A., Open J-Gage as well as in Cabell ‟ s Directories of Publishing Opportunities, U.S.A.InternationalJournalofManagement,ITandEngineeringhttp://www.ijmra.us
3. K.S.M.SwaminathanM.PhilScholar,BharathidasanUniversity,Tiruchirappalli,Tamil Nadu.IndianJournalofInformationSourcesandServicesISSN:2231-6094Vol.7No. 1,2017,pp.36-39,©TheResearchPublication,www.trp.org.in
4. International Journal of Information Movement Vol.2 Issue VI (October 2017)
Website:www.ijim.inISSN:2456-0553(online)Pages174-188174|pageA.kumar, Dr.M. Nagarajan and Dr S. Prabakar- Newspaper Reading Habits: A Case Study
NEWSPAPER READING HABITS: A CASE STUDY A.kumar Senior Executive Email:-kumar.a@greatlakes.edu.inDr.M.NagarajanAssistantLibrarian,AMETUniversity Dr S.PrabakarLibrarian,AMETUniversity,Email:-Ahmedabad.
5. Dr.V N.Nagashetti, &AnandY.Kenchakkanavar (2015)evaluated a study on “News PaperReadingHabitsamongtheStudentsofMunicipalArtsandCommerceCollege, Laxmeshwar: A Sociological Perspective ”International Journal of Advanced Researchin Eduation& Technology (IJARET)206Vol. 2, Issue 3 (July - Sept. 2015)
ISSN:2394-2975(Online)ISSN:2394-6814(Print)www ijaret com©IJARET AllRightsReserved
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