Research

By Ambarish Chandra, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business, Strategy and Business Economics Divison

By Shrihari Sridhar, Assitant Professor Marketing Department, Broad School of Business Michigan State University

By Steve Wildman, James H. Quello Professor of Telecommunications Studies

Director, Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law Michigan State Univeristy

Editors see engagement as part of good business. Over and over in the open-ended responses, they said connecting with and listening to their communities is vital to their newspapers’ survival. That said, they don’t know how to fit it in.

Communication Markets Lecture Series
Spring Semester, 2011
Sponsored by Mizzou Advantage and the Reynolds Journalism Institute

Consistent with the findings in the past, the 2010 annual readership survey revealed that 73 percent of small-town readers read local papers. Most of the readers (94%) pay for their papers and more than two-thirds (78%) of respondents read most to all contents of their papers.

The 2010 Community Newspaper Readership Study on behalf of the National Newspaper Association showed that residents in small towns across America read ads on local newspapers more than those on television, radio and the Internet. Similar to the findings about editorial contents, local newspapers were also the primary source of information for small-town residents to makepurchasing decisions.

The results show that suburban/community newspapers are important, valuable, and informative to residents of suburbs. Click for more detailed findings.