Students are optimistic, fiercely political and passionate about the world around them. Alongside being shamelessly alcoholic and having an almost infinite capacity for daytime television, this remains one of the most enduring stereotypes of those who attend university. Imagine overhearing a group of young, educated adults articulately debating their views on politics, the environment, global poverty. Surely they must be students, perhaps engaging in a principled debate about human rights, perhaps discussing the more pressing issue of the rising cost of tuition fees? This image is reassuring for a number of reasons; it shows that young adults have not lost their optimism and originality of ideas, and it bodes well for the future, as these men and women will eventually hold positions of responsibility within our society. The fuller their experience and knowledge of current affairs are at university, the more developed their opinions become, the better it is for all of us in the long run. The engagement of students in such conversations may well suggest that the future is bright. But is this stereotype actually prevalent in students nowadays, or is it merely an image we like to fashion for ourselves? Has the genuine hunger for knowledge about the world around us been replaced by a flat apathy? Are we as on-the-pulse of world affairs as we like to think? The Student investigates how knowledgeable the students of Edinburgh really are.

Over the course of last week, The Student interviewed 100 Edinburgh students from all over the Central Area and King’s Buildings. Students were asked to name their main sources of news, and how often each week they checked the headlines. After answering these questions, they were given a quick test on the main news stories that had occurred earlier that week to try and gauge how up-to-date they actually were. One might expect that the results would reveal a clear correlation between actively seeking news from a conventional source such as a broadsheet newspaper and being aware of most major current affairs stories. However, the outcome was far from expected...

By a large margin, the primary source of current affairs news amongst students from both campuses is the internet. 61 per cent of those interviewed said that they set their homepage to display news updates, be it from the BBC or a broadsheet website. This means that most students receive news headlines every day when they log online, and that they are constantly updated as the news changes throughout any given day. However, on being questioned a little further, most students interviewed admitted that they often pay only the most cursory of glances to the headlines before commencing with something more pressing, such as coursework or YouTube. Moreover, few students were convinced that they would log on to the internet purely for the purpose of the checking the news – it was usually a by-product of surfing for something else (or a method of procrastination). Only  15 per cent of students interviewed listed traditional broadsheet newspapers as their primary source of news – a staggeringly small proportion. Those that make a point of regularly popping to the newsagents praised newspapers for their superior quality of journalism, as well as the inclusion of editorials and commentary from respected columnists. Students that glance at headlines over the internet miss out on the opinion columns, which can be a crucial element in the process of deciding one’s stance on a particular issue.

Eight per cent of survey participants confessed that they mainly hear about the news through their friends. While it is encouraging to see students discussing the issues of the wider world, this source is often an imperfect one, as facts generally become distorted by opinion upon retelling, and ordinary conversations are not the most accomodating for many news items. In addition to this flawed source of information, one student unabashedly confessed to receiving the news entirely through the comedy panel show series Mock The Week.
Considering the rather varied and inconsistent ways in which students receive their news, the participants in the survey performed surprisingly well when it came to the testing. The vast majority could recognise and elaborate on two or more headline news articles from the previous three days. Indeed, many of the interviewees impressed The Student’s reporters with their comprehensive answers, including accurate figures and details. Most of those questioned were particularly knowledgeable about the recent demonstrations in London regarding the increase in tuition fees, which is understandable given how close to home this issue is to many Edinburgh students. However, there appeared to be some discrepancy between such an awareness of current affairs and the relatively limited readership of daily news. It became apparent that there was another, more subtle force at work.

This can be accounted for in one particular outcome of the survey which did not show up on the results. Time and time again, when presented with a topic of recent news, interviewees would reply: “I saw that on my Facebook news feed”. Perhaps we are not informed about the wider world through traditional media of television or newspapers, but rather by our peers through social networking websites. As regards Facebook’s news feed - the clue is certainly in the name. However, this does not  merely apply to updates on the lives of our friends and acquaintances, but also to news stories that they have found interesting, links to articles that they have discovered, expressions of opinion, and the inevitable online debates through subsequent comments. It only takes one user to post an article of interest on their wall for the information to be taken up by their friends and reposted again and again. In almost no time at all an article can travel across the entire campus, provided it is interesting enough to be reposted.

The repercussions of this concept are startling – if this trend continues then our relationship with the media could be changed forever. Perhaps we will move away from receiving our news from professional journalists altogether, and rely entirely on the information posted by our friends and colleagues on social networking sites. In this sense, one might say that we become the journalists ourselves, with an increasing amount of us reporting on a recent event, and expressing our opinions through our comments. Unlike the one-way conversations of traditional news updates, we can now have a full debate through the comments left by our peers. We have all witnessed impassioned arguments on social networking sites, where the lack of physical presence and the ability to fully consider what they are about to say gives individuals the confidence to express opinions they might not otherwise have had. While the ensuing debates are not necessarily always particularly reasoned, or indeed mature, such freedom to leave feedback on what others say online must be beneficial. Indeed, this trend of moving away from classic, one-way media can be demonstrated and observed in the increasing number of journalists setting up Twitter accounts and “tweeting” their latest reports and articles.

The conclusions that can be drawn from this survey are mostly positive. Whilst it appears that the majority of students have discarded the traditional broadsheet newspaper with their morning coffee, and change the channel when the news comes on in the evening, it seems that this dispensing with conventional journalism has been counterbalanced with a more fundamental group understanding of current affairs. In the age of online social networking, super-fast broadband and even internet on our mobile phones, we are rarely out of touch with our peers. Those who are more informed help along those who are not, and there is a much greater scope for forming opinions with extensive online debate. So in our own way, sometimes erratically, sometimes entirely by chance, we as students of the University of Edinburgh – as an interconnected network of friends –  stay firmly on the pulse of global affairs. And that is the best news of all.