Charles Gibson vs. Jon Stewart

Some critics have been concerned that young adults in the United States are beginning to turn away from traditional sources of political news such as ABC World News in favor of nontraditional programs such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In this study, a random sample of 884 UNC-CH students participated in an online survey that assessed their news consumption habits and political socialization factors such as political knowledge, strength of political opinions, levels of political cynicism, trust, and efficacy, interpersonal communication and political participation. Two clear trends emerged. First, young adults still are using more traditional than nontraditional television news. Comedy shows with political satire were the only nontraditional TV news category to rank in their top five sources of political news. Second, traditional TV news consumption is related to higher political efficacy, while the use of nontraditional news is related to higher political knowledge, opinion holding and activity.