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Investigating Newspaper Reading Habits in Gilgit-Baltistan: A Quantitative Analysis
Inayat Ullah & Zafar Ali
Abstract:
It is crucial for newspapers and other media to measure audience engagement. There are some specific indicators of reading behaviour that are generally used to measure newspaper readership. They can include if someone read a paper yesterday, how often they read, how many times in the last week, how much time they spend reading, and how much of the paper/sections they read. Existing studies are largely concerned with determining the reasons for readership or the impact that it has. For example, the readership itself is too often ignored and is dealt with in too simplistic a way. Scientists usually use the measurement they have determined to be a single question, such as how often students read. Generally, more than one question produces more reliable results than one; there are many ways to measure readership. Frequency is only one of the indicators. The purpose of this study was to know about the choice, preference and habit of the newspaper readers in regard to the content of the newspaper. It was carried out in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan and adopted the survey method. It was found that an individual newspaper subscription pales in comparison to an institutional or official newspaper subscription. The regional newspapers had more readership than the national newspapers. The most time was spent on opinion/Op-Ed pages. Among the different sections, the political news and editorials received the most, whereas lesser interest was shown in the cinema, sports, business, and commerce and advertisements sections. These findings have implications for newspaper marketers.
Keywords:
Gilgit-Baltistan, Newspaper Reading, Reading habits, Regional newspapers, newspaper marketers
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