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Canadian Information Media Targetting Younger Canadians

The information media that appeals most to younger Canadians is defined as the medium which information best directs itself towards a younger audience up to the age of 25 located within the geographical location of Canada. The information media that best accomplishes this goal is seen as having the responsiblity of educating and entertainging the younger population of Canada, which can often be misunderstood and seen as inconsistent by other media. The information media that does the best job of appealing to a younger Canadian audience is the television because of it's availablity in the Western world and because it is free for the younger audiences of Canada. The main influence that determines whether or not an information media will be appealing to a younger audience is whether or not it can be both imformative and entertaining. The language used is also important and demonstrates to it's viewers that the program understands the intended audience. Interest in advertising is also important because it determines a lot of what the audience will be exposed to and what values will be promoted on the show. However, there has been a trend of increasinly positive messages being promoted on television, allowing younger audiences to benefit from their messages.

There are many different levels for the media to communicate with its audience and many of these mediums try to deliver information and news to a younger generation of Canadians. Overall, television is most successful in terms of targeting a younger demographic of Canadians with information media. The multiple ways in which the audience can be incorporated as well as the easy access to television in the West allows the audience to. Furthermore, advertising keeps this medium free, further appealing to the younger generation.

Appeal to Younger Canadians

Daryn Jones interview Rupert Grint

MTV Live host Daryn Jones interviews Rupert Grint.

There are three basic categories for defining news values to the audience. These are immediacy, personalization, and extraordinariness. These areas all incorporate what is new or immediate in the world, the effectiveness in communicating with an anonymous audience, and dealing with news concerning issues out of the ordinary. However, in order to appeal to a younger audience there is a diversion from adult values to a more entertainment based news report. For example, MTV News Canada reports on the days entertainment and pop culture news and interviews emerging and well-known artists in the music industry and with celebrities. MTV Live Canada deals with the comedic styles of the show’s hosts as well as occasionally incorporating musical performances from prominent bands. Additionally, it appeals to a younger audience by incorporating them into the show, segments such as "Twitter Me a Script" as well as announcing live tweets on the show include the audience and allow younger viewers to interact with the show. In addition to incorporating youth into the show, it also utilizes media that the audience is familiar with. The ability to identify with the show is important to it's success with a younger audience. This method of delivering information is recognized by many people as the new normal, however this method of delivering information is relatively constant. The necessity for news to incorporate immediacy, personalization, and extraordinariness into stories is a form of entertainment integrated into the broadcast. These information media appealing to children are merely utilizing a form of personalization that appeals to the younger generation. The successes in terms of news media for young readers demonstrate the validity of their information distributed to their audience. Although they use a different method of delivering information, these media follow the same model utilized by other information media and distribute equally valid information to younger Canadians.

Younger Canadians lean toward information media that they can personally identify with. Preservation of the younger demographics sense of religious and ethnic customs, identity and community, and ability to negotiate individual difference and autonomy in the face of pressures to conform to family and media expectations is crucial to understanding why certain information mediums appeal to younger Canadians. These factors in understanding information medium choice can be seen in the adolescent Punjabi in England. Canadian based information television programs appeal to younger Canadians because of the overwhelming pressure on Canadians to watch American programming. While Canadians get much of their entertainment from American they prefer to receive their news from reliable Canadian sources. TV viewing time sees an increase in foreign television for genres such as comedy and drama, however News and public affairs remains distinctly Canadian. While drama has a 22.6% viewership for foreign shows and 3.4% viewership for Canadian programs the news has a 15.6% viewership for Canadian programming and 8.1% viewership for foreign programming. These number grow further apart for francophone audiences with a viewership of Canadian programming at 29.6% and the viewership of foreign programming at 1.9%. Younger audiences are therefore more drawn to Canadian information programming instead of foreign programming due to the personalization of the programming.

The validity of the information received from this source increases young Canadians reliance on television as an information medium. Studies found that television is considered more credible and is used more as a source for information than newspapers. Credibility associated with this particular mediums content demonstrates successes in terms of news media and young readers. While there is credibility in regard to traditional media, future research intends to investigate how audiences using the mass media's newest information source for health-related content, the Internet, determine credibility. The perception of reliability is enhanced based on language intensity, style, attractiveness, and quality. In addition, knowledge of content has been identified as one of the more significant factors impacting heuristic cues used when evaluating a message. The less the audience knows about a certian subject the more reliable it was perceived to be. When receivers are highly knowledgeable, their ability and motivation to process are greater, which heightens their critical interpretation.

Agenda of Televised Information Media

Consumerism is ingrained in Western society and is incorporated into Canadian information media. With a high concentration of young Canadian’s information media, advertising directed towards young Canadians has the potential to market to a highly concentrated audience and stimulate sales in specific areas. Advertising plays an important role for televised information media, $2.9 billion of young Canadians money is spent on food, entertainment and clothing every year. Additionally, young Canadians influence $20 billion in household purchases every year. Advertising plays an important role in the agenda of all media aimed at children to create future consumers.

National advertising on information media programs directed to kids is bought by national advertising agencies that handle the countries biggest advertisers. An example of this is Procter & Gamble and McDonald's. In-house advertising and public relation departments compose these companies but the advertising strategy and production is handled by it's agencies. A careful formula has been created based on the cost-per-thousand basis. This formula is calculated by the cost of an ad per 1000 people reached. Concerns about these agendas have resulted in some of America's largest food and drink companies have adopted voluntary steps to put stricter controls on advertising aimed at children under 12. This was in response to an increase in childhood obesity resulting in advertisers promising to further the goal of healthy dietary choices. The food companies' pledges were posted on the Council of Better Business Bureau's Website.

Advertising

Advertising is a crucial portion of the information media in Canada, and the effectiveness in appealing to younger Canadians is directly related to advertising. Younger Canadians are one-third more likely to respond to advertising compared to an older Canadian audience. They are also most influenced by ads they see on television, with television ads having the most influence on purchases, up to 26%. The appeal of advertising for Canadians are the promotion of low prices, eye catching imagery, and the inclusion of a web address increases audience participation by 9%.

Advertising influences the content of information young Canadians get because advertisers are substantially integrated into the television medium. Television began as an advertising medium and TV networks depend on the attraction of commercial support. In 2009, television advertising revenue in the U.S. totalled about $34 billion. This dependancy on advertisers resulted in advertising agencies becoming televisions programmers. The impact of advertising on television is remarkable, Fox wrote, "Given one advertiser and a show title often bearing its name, viewers associate a favourite show with it's sponsor and - because of the 'gratitude factor' - would buy the product." Since advertisers help pay for mass media they influence the content young Canadians see in their information media.

Demographics allow advertisers to compose data about a target audiences gender, age, income level, location, occupation, and marital status. This increases the penetration of advertising to younger Canadians and allows advertisers to target their message. This perceptiveness into audience composition permits advertisers to target incredibly specific demographics with messages. This coupled with the influence of advertisers have on their audience allows advertisers to control the information media available to young Canadians. The advertising industry today, therefore, has a large impact on the information that reaches young Canadians through the various mediums they receive this information. With the ability to target demographics, advertisers have the ability to be increasingly accurate when targeting a certain demographic.

Impact of Non-Commerical Advertising

Non-commerical advertising directed toward Canadian teens generally targets violence, sex, and dugs amount Canadian teenagers. Violence in schools is perceived as a very serious problem by a significant number of teenagers. Gender plays a role in this perception, 65% of females believed violence in schools was a serious problem with 40% of males polled shared this viewpoint. Furthermore, five in ten females say they have had a close friend who has been severely depressed and four in ten have had a friend attempt suicide. These findings indicate that the incidence of depression and suicide attempts, physical attacks and abuse are startlingly high. Furthermore, in the 1990's young Canadians composed 20% of the victims of violent crime even though they only represented 11% of the population.

Sexuality is another issue that teenagers face, and a topic that non-commercial advertising targets viciously. Young people generally approve of sex before marriage, 80% polled agreed to this with little difference between gender. About one in two teenagers approve of homosexual relations and maintain that they are equal to the same rights as other Canadians. Canadian teenagers have a strong belief in what is sexually appropriate and what is not and the ability for advertisers to influence these beliefs is important in molding perceived appropriate behaviour and sexual activity. Threats such as AIDScontribute to the reduction of activity and results in more protect sex because of the awareness spread about the subject. Non-commercial advertisers hope to influence this behaviour in order to protect uneducated teenagers from possibly obtaining this fatal disease, as well as making other regrettable mistakes.

Drugs have also had considerable publicity in the non-commercial advertising industry, emphasizing the problem of drug use among young people. Some 25% of males and 15% of females have had conflict with their parents over the issue of drugs. Furthermore, the access to drugs for Canadian teens is ample. An astounding 77% of teens said that if they wanted to use illegal drugs they would be able to get some with little to no difficulty. The drug community is a place where young people can find a creative and open network of individuals with similar lifestyles. The concern and safety of these young people are important to non-commercial ad campaigns who attempt to find options that will foster their development, and support their ability to make informed choices.

Anti-Drug ad

A popular Canadian ad campaign demoting drug-use .

Non-commercial advertising has gained a lot of influence in younger demographic programming, particularily with rising concerns over what is exposed to younger Canadians. These ad's are composed of advertising sponsored by or for a charitable institution or civic group or religious or political organization. Many noncommercial advertisements seek money and placed in the hope of raising funds however, the main goal of the majority of non-commercial advertising directed at young Canadians is to change consumer behavior. Generally television commercials are considered the most effective mass-market advertising format however, the power of these advertisements on children are difficult to objectively calculate. Overall, The effectiveness of thses advertisements are generally believed to be positive. Four in ten of Canadians believe that advertising has had a positive influence on drinking and driving. Additionally a third believed that positive messages such as getting a flu shot, and endorsing greener lifestyles were portrayed through advertising.

Internet vs Television

Young Canadians distinguish the internet as a convenient system of receiving reliable information on various subjects however, television is more a more respected and received medium. The news viewed by younger graphic Canadians on the internet is perceived to be reliable by the audience, but these sources were unable to compete with traditional news outlets such as television and newspapers, which were ranked as reliable or very reliable by between 83 and 88 per cent of young adult respondents, whereas only 33 per cent said the same about social networking sites or blogs. The rapid embrace of the Internet by first world nations gave a false belief that it would replace many old media that would become outdated and ineffective. However, when new forms of communication media emerge, the older forms do not die out they continue to evolve and adapt. Furthermore, the Internet is still transforming and customizing itself to suit the needs of it's consumers. Paul Saffo theorized that the pace of change for new media is 30 years. He calls this the "30 year rule" which, is characterized by three stages. The current stage, characterized by excitement but little penetration. Prenetration and effective utilization of the technology will emerge over the following two decades, where Internet will be more familiar with people, and it will rival the reliability of television.

Internet access for Canadians creates a divide between the wealthy and poor, making it an unreliable system devoid of equality. In 1997 to 1999 Internet access in Canada grew fastest for the top 25% of the population, from 53.7 to 71.2 percent of households. The poorest 25% of households saw an increase, however it was much slower growing from 12.4% to 18.8%. Cost of access, occupation, education, and gender bias are all predictors of who has access to the internet. Additionally, the use of internet by home activity varied. 52.1% of households used the internet for email while only 30.2% used it to view the news in 2003. Critics such as Tim Berners-Lee recognize these inequalities in distribution and promote the expansion of access to the Web's constructive benefit's throughout the world. Projects such as the World Wide Web Foundation try to advance a free and open Web, expand the Web's capability and robustness, and expand the Web's benefits to all people on the planet. Future technology is attempting to turn it's attention ethically developing the Internet by listening to people who don't use the Web at all, or to those who could use it if only it were different in some way.

Newspapers vs Television

Newspapers incorporate articles that will high appeal to a large audience. This serves the dual purpose of appealing to advertisers and appealing to a large consumer market. The dependancy of newspapers on advertisers funding is the result of increased operational costs which, cannot be fully paid for by capital generated from sales alone. " Newspaper content is generated based on what will appeal to the largest audience to attract advertisers, making up for his operational costs. This influences the content of the newspaper being directed towards a more mature newspaper literate audience rather then a younger crowd. Newspapers also lack appeal to a younger audience because of the inconvenience compared to other more popular media and the cost associated with them. Young Canadians with limited income are much less likely to purchase a newspaper, especially when alternative mediums provide the same information with no associated costs. Attraction to free mediums by a younger generation has caused an explosion in popularity in online news. These internet newspapers however have also fall short of television because they are lacking a working model of delivering information and making money. Sustainable business models for that medium of news are difficult to transition to and only a few websites have attained that goal. These problems plaguing the newspaper industry have resulted in the abandonment of newspapers, particularly by the younger generation. Newspaper revenues are declining rapidly, something that caused over 100 newspapers to close in the first six months of 2009 alone. Newspaper publish companies have been reluctant to change their business models, but content creation and sales are becoming a mitigating factor in the declining businesses of the newspaper. Newspaper publishers suggest that catering to young people is not a feasible business model because they don’t read papers, and don’t tend to spend enough money to make it worthwhile for publishers to pursue.

Why are Children Attracted to Television for Information Media?

thumb|left|alt=Marshall McLuhan|Marshall McLuhan in the early 1970's. Marshall McLuhan stated that media were combinations of elements that served the purpose of identification for society. Eventually, mass media gave rise to postmodern society. McLuhan saw postmodernity as the post-mechanical electric age with all the implications that the broad definitions brought with it. Electric circuitry brought electric media in which the common and determining element is simultaneity. From this McLuhan argued that society had become transparent, more conscious of itself and more enlightened. This transparent society that McLuhan argues explains why younger Canadians would be more drawn to information media in the first place. In the beginning of a post modern society mass media played a determining role. This society is characterized by mass media, not merely as a transparent society, but as a complex equal society. Equal opportunity in society allows for a younger audience to want to experience the same information that the older generations are exposed to in order to equally share opinions and observations about society. It is because of this that children would be interested in seeking out information media. Furthermore, McLuhan's distinction of our society as one aware that we are living in a time that is different from the ancient helps understand the need for information media. This idea puts a distinction between the two times and they are characterized the availability and acquisition of knowledge. To identify with our society it would be necessary for children, who are newly discovering themselves, to be immersed in the knowledge available to our society. This can be done by the utilization of media, and making it appealing to the younger demographic.

The reason television would be young Canadians primary means of acquiring information is also touched upon by McLuhan. McLuhan believed that citizenship came from where the persons interests lay. The global village that our society has become requires knowledge about the world in order for people to fully obtain and utilize citizenship. Furthermore, in an increasingly transparent society, there is more pressure on a younger generation to acquire this knowledge and utilize it. The radically new language of post-modern society coupled with increasing awareness of citizenship makes younger audiences more adamant about understanding the world around them. McLuhan described media as sensorial instruments. Media awareness allows people to become aware of their "electrical senses", and ultimately directly participate in an experience. Television, appealing to the most senses, naturally becomes the first choice as young Canadians can sensorially experience the world the most utilizing this medium. McLuhan supported this thought in an interview with Playboy where he says, "Television is primarily an extension of the sense of touch, and it is the tactile sense that demands the greatest interplay of all the senses."