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Study: Canadians and their news media diet
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This online edition of Canadian Social Trends contains the article "Keeping up with the times: Canadians and their news media diet."
This article used the 2003 General Social Survey (GSS) on social engagement to examine how Canadians who follow the news differ from those who do not.
It compares Canadians whose media consumption consists of only television, to those who have a different diet. And it looks at how this influences their "non-voting political activity", such as volunteering for a political party, signing a petition or expressing their views by contacting a newspaper or a politician.
The study found that the level of political engagement Canadians report is influenced by their frequency of news consumption and the choices they make from the media sources available to them.
Frequent followers of the news participate in more political activities. But the GSS data show that the media that people select does influence participation in non-voting political activities.
Those frequent users who chose only television tended to participate in fewer non-voting political activities. In fact, in terms of their involvement, people who used television as their only source of news closely mirrored those who did not follow the news at all.
This finding supports previous US research that lower rates of political participation are associated with using television as the only source of news.
Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 5024.
The study "Keeping up with the times: Canadians and their news media diet" is now available in the March 2007 issue of Canadian Social Trends, no. 82 (11-008-XWE, free) from the Publications module of our website.
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Client Services (613-951-5979; sasd-dssea@statcan.gc.ca), Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division.
