ABSTRACT
Evidence on this topic is exceptionally sparse; but it would seem reasonable to conclude that insofar as young people are being informed about current events, television news is likely to constitute a significant source. This may be the case even with very young children. For example, Denis Howitt (1982) reports on an earlier unpublished study looking at British preschoolers’ perceptions of events in Northern Ireland. While their knowledge was predictably very vague and confused, these children were aware that there was political violence taking place in Northern Ireland, and that bombs and weapons were involved – knowledge which, Howitt argues, could only have come from television. As this implies, much of young people’s viewing of news may be accidental rather than purposeful, distracted rather than concentrated; as Katz (1993) suggests, they may be more inclined to absorb information ‘on the fly’, in fragments, during the course of other activities.
