2007-05-22-皮尤-Growing_Up_With_the_News_6页_34kb

Summary of News Release: "Most Parents Encourage their Kids to Follow the News"

Key Findings

• Encouragement of News Following: Among parents of school-aged children (kindergarten through 12th grade), 61% often or sometimes encourage their kids to follow national and international news. In contrast, 47% sometimes try to shield their children from news, with 38% never doing so.

• News Consumption by Children: Only 6% of school-aged children closely follow national and international news, while 23% follow it fairly closely. The majority (71%) do not follow it too closely or not at all.

• Primary News Sources: Television is the dominant medium for children's news consumption. Among parents who believe their kids pay attention to news, 31% say their children's main source is network television, 24% is cable TV, 18% is the internet, and only 10% rely on newspapers.

• Parental Influence and Habits: Parents' own level of interest in news significantly affects their encouragement of children. Parents disengaged from news are less likely to encourage their kids (43% do so often or sometimes, compared to over 70% for moderately or highly interested parents). Older children (ages 12-17) are more likely to be encouraged (71%), whereas younger children under age 6 are less likely (50%).

• Political Partisanship: There are no major differences between parties; Republican and Democratic parents both show similar levels of encouragement and shielding from news, with independents slightly less likely to encourage.

• Survey Methodology: The report is based on the News Interest Index survey conducted in May 2007, involving 435 parents of school-aged children. The poll has a 95% confidence interval of ±3.5 percentage points for total sample results, with larger margins for subgroups.

The findings highlight trends in parental approaches to children's news exposure, emphasizing no partisan divide and the influence of parental habits on youth.