TEENAGERS’ NEEDS TOWARDS NEWSPAPERS CONTENT

The newspaper provides a lot of information that could accumulate various kinds of knowledge if we read frequently. The reading trend among teenagers once was very encouraging, but recently it is starting to decline. In 2008, the percentage of teenagers who read newspapers accounted for 54% and it has been declining to 38% in 2011 and 32% in 2013. It shows that the teenagers read less newspaper and also shows that there is a significant gap in the newspaper acceptance among them. The content of the newspaper is the main reason as why the acceptance of the newspapers declining. Hence, media organization should consider their demand as it is fundamental to provide general information to the teenagers and also to determine the future of the newspaper itself. Based on the uses and gratification theory that has been put forward by Katz, Haas and Gurevitch (1973), this study aims to identify the teenager’s needs toward the newspaper. A total of 387 teenagers aged between 16 and 17 years, consists of various ethnic in 10 secondary schools in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, was chosen as respondents. The results revealed that factors affecting teenagers to read newspaper are escapism and cognitive needs rather than social, feelings and personal need. This is due to the fact that the press frequently publishes content that contains escapism elements; reading materials that could reduce stress and cure loneliness. It is hoped that the results can be used as a reference by the press in publishing more and balanced content in terms of cognitive, feelings, personal, social and escapism.