The Center for Advance Social Research (CASR) in collaboration with the Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA) conducted a study of suburban newspaper markets in 2009. The purpose of the study was to examine readership of metropolitan daily newspapers, paid suburban dailies, paid weeklies, and free weeklies, perception and use of advertising through different media channels such as newspaper, television, and online, and the role of news media in satisfying people’s informational needs for news and purchasing decision making.
Researchers of CASR interviewed 2,615 adults aged 18 or older in eleven selected suburbs or designated market areas (DMAs) across the United States using the random digit dialing methodology. The markets included Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Seattle, & Washington D.C.
The results show that suburban/community newspapers are important, valuable, and informative to residents of suburbs. Some of the key findings are:
- Local news matters! Up to 90% of adults were interested in community/neighborhood news, and state/regional news;
- In comparison to other media outlets, community newspapers remained the most important source for all things local: community/neighborhood news (66%), local youth/high school sports (64%), local business news (55%), local shopping/advertising (53%), and local entertainment news (53%);
- Almost 80% of adults rated the quality of community newspapers as good to excellent; more than 80% of adults agreed that their suburban newspapers were informative to them;
- More than half of adults agreed that, if suburban newspapers stopped publishing, there would be negative consequences.
For more results of the study, please see the power point presentation below.
For questions or more information about the study, please contact Kenneth Fleming, PhD, at flemingk@missouri.edu
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