Research shows that students using the newspaper as an educational resource score more highly on standardized tests, develop the habit of lifelong reading and are more likely to become engaged citizens and regular voters.
This report found that strong media ecosystems are critical for supporting youth civic engagement and that local news outlets can be a key part of a community’s media ecosystem, alongside other institutions such as libraries and community nonprofits. Stronger media ecosystems are associated with higher youth voting.
This report found that student journalism and school newspapers play a key role in helping students understand that their voices can keep leaders accountable—an important foundation for voter confidence and civic participation.
This meta-analysis found a strong correlation between online and offline forms of participation in civic and political life by young people, and concludes that youth should be encouraged to read online news, comment on current events, and when they find a cause that interests them, they should connect with relevant groups online and participate in related activities.
This article examines how newspapers and advertisements can be used as a context for developing scientific literacy and for promoting the development of critical thinking skills.
This study found that news consumption has a positive impact on political/civic engagement by young people both online and offline, and is more likely to lead to greater political knowledge; that news consumption through the printed media or the Internet is related to both offline and online political/civic engagement and political knowledge; and that reading the news from the print media outperforms news consumption over the Internet in making the respondents more politically knowledgeable.
This report recommends that school districts and educators “engage students in following the news and deliberating about issues, assign students to read and discuss news in class and with their parents or other adults, and use assessment systems that reward students’ discussion and investigation of current events and issues.”
This working paper found that exposing students to news coverage about politics, and having those students discuss what they read with their parents as well as in class, may make students more politically knowledgeable, especially for students outside of the AP/honors track and whose parents scored low on the scale of political knowledge.
This analysis found that students who frequently read news about their country in newspapers had higher average levels of civic knowledge; that students who reported that they read domestic news in newspapers were more likely to indicate that they expected to vote as adults than students who were less frequent consumers of news; and that encouraging the use of newspapers at school may be beneficial, particularly where few homes receive daily newspapers.
This research presents a case study of an intensive, newspaper-based reading program that increased reading comprehension quickly and dramatically.
This report found that the use of newspapers in the classroom, the use of newspapers for homework assignments and access to a teen section or teen-focused content in newspapers encourages young people to be more civically engaged as teens and to vote, volunteer and otherwise remain civically engaged as much as 15 years later.
This research found that low-income, minority and non-native English-speaking students benefit significantly from NIE programs in their schools.
This report provided evidence that student journalists earned better high school grades, performed at higher levels on college entrance exams and received higher grades in college writing and grammar courses than students who lacked that experience.
This research found that the use of newspapers as an educational resource leads to higher levels of interest in news and politics and higher levels of adult newspaper readership.
This paper gives an overview of the advantages of using mass media in the classroom.