The Involvement of Advanced Level Students in Reading Newspapers: The Study Based on Schools in Valigamam Zone

Abstract

Newspapers are considered as one of the older forms of traditional media. Since ancient times, newspapers have had immense influence among the masses. Even though convergence has affected the conversional readership pattern, a significant amount of people rely on newspapers to get daily news stories. At the same time, newspapers remain the best readable media than other readable media to date. However, there is an opinion that the growth of other media paved the way to a drop in newspaper reading. In this backdrop, this study was conducted to determine the interest of the students’ groups defined above in reading newspapers. The study was conducted in Skanthavarodaya College of Uduvil Cluster, Vaddukkoddai Hindu College of Sanganai Cluster, Manipay Hindu College of Chandilippai Cluster, and the Mahajana College of Tellippalai Cluster. The schools represent both urban and rural settings and are classified as 1AB class schools. The study adopted the quantitative methodology and qualitative methodology: observation, activity research and interviews employed as study tools to collect data. The analysis of both quantitative, and qualitative data revealed that the Advanced Level students are more interested in reading textbooks and storybooks when compare with newspapers. Also, the students are more interested to read newspapers online than its physical format. The study discovered that knowing political situation was the main purpose of reading newspaper among students followed by entertainment, sports news, matters related education, improve creativity and to know the advertisement was the other subject areas preferred by these students. It was discovered that in the streams of Advanced Level study, students from the arts stream are more interested in reading newspapers than students from mathematics, science, commerce and technological streams. Closely analyzing the primary data, the study discovered that the schools are not implementing extra-curricular activities and learning activities with the purpose of improving newspaper reading habits among students.