A WINDOW ON ARAB YOUTH

The eighth annual Asda’a Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey reveals a generation in transition, not least when it comes to their media consumption habits.

the agency’s founder and chief executive, offers his insight and analysis into this year’s findings

The aim of this annual survey is to present evidence-based insights into the attitudes of Arab youth, providing public and private sector organisations with data and analysis to inform their decision-making and policy formation.

As in previous years, that evidence points to a highly tech-savvy youth, completely at home in the digital world, and one that is tuned in to the political and economic situation in the Middle East. It also Our key findings this year reveal that, for the first time, more young Arabs get their daily news online than from television or print media. Newspaper and magazine readership among young people in the region is in a precipitous decline.

When asked about their daily news consumption, 32 per cent of young Arabs say they get their daily news online, while 29 per cent said they watched television news and just 7 per cent read newspapers daily (down from 13 per cent in 2015).

However, it is not all bad news for what we can term ‘legacy’ media, or at least television. In spite of the growing use of online media, television remains king of total media consumption with