A Focus Group Survey in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine

While youth lack trust in broadcasters, they are nonetheless willing to cooperate with them if issues concerning young people were to take up more space in traditional media, the survey “Bridging the gap”, a cornerstone for the Shabab Live project, found.

While many recent studies show that youth are turning away from broadcasters and prefer web or social media, few look in detail at the reasons behind this disconnection or provide recommendations for the way forward. This survey tries to fill that gap, to allow for informed choices, and to indicate the most important issues to be addressed by Shabab Live in the future.

334 young people aged between 15 and 30 years from six countries were interviewed for the study. They not only expressed their concerns and criticism, but also suggested topics of interest to young people and what an ideal program would look like in their opinion. Although youth overwhelmingly agree that their preferred platform is social media, the study showed that they continue to follow broadcasters’ content via TV and radio, or through these broadcasters’ online presence. But they do criticize the content of traditional media and many feel that they lack credibility and content that is important to young people. “They play a role in making youth stupid (…) they focus on music and sports”, a participant in a focus group in Morocco stated. Others said they did not feel that they have a place on TV or radio. “They know we will criticize them or say opinions they don’t agree with, so they don’t ask”, a participant in Tunisia said.

The survey was conducted for Shabab Live by Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD), with the financial assistance of the European Union and the support of the Federal Foreign Office. The key findings will be published End of February 2019. The full version of the study will be available for download in English and Arabic at the beginning of March 2019