The media and the message What they watch Dawn of the computer age aWhat they read

Girls might be spending almost 37 hours a week reading, viewing or listening to media texts and boys even more at 42 hours per week but they are careful about their choices and they are not just passive receivers.

Young people reported in the survey that they visited the cinema about once a month. Two weeks ago 1000 older pupils attended screenings of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at cinemas in the West of Scotland.

The play is a set text in Higher English and the pupils had been in fifth year for only a few days. The film opens with the prologue being read by a television newsreader and rapidly moves into stomach churning zooms and fast cuts. But the iambic pentameter remains. The film is true to the text.

Teachers report an unusually high demand for copies of the play to be read in pupils' own time. So, when it is presented in an accessible way, it seems that the language is not a barrier after all.

If modern texts are valuable for the way in which they lead back to the classics, they are also of value in themselves. Young girls have chosen soap operas and the soap-derived Friends as their favourite television programmes.

Soaps have interweaving narratives, ongoing stories and a range of characters which often crosses the generation gap.

The storylines, although often treated in a shallow manner, raise playground discussions of ''the issues''. EastEnders, for example, plays out teenage concerns and it should be no surprise that it is popular with 13-year-old girls.

Our findings support the need for media studies in schools, not to give popular culture a sound thrashing in the classroom but to raise the issues and look at the vested interests behind the images. Statistics that boys are reading more books, magazines, newspapers, and information from the Internet are to be welcomed.

In recent surveys boys have been shown as failing at school and yet in their own time, in their own way, Scottish boys are more involved with language and information than they were 10 years ago.

They may be less active but they're not wasting time.

Girls, on the other hand, are spending less time with the whole range of media texts than their predecessors. This may be a more worrying statistic. Does it suggest that the media is catering more for stereotypical male tastes such as action and sport?

Perhaps in turning off, the girls are rejecting what is the ''dumbing-down'' of some of the media's output, usually that which is produced by the ones who shout loudest about the lowering of standards. Are media texts becoming more macho?

The amount of time that boys are spending on more violent computer games is significant.

The debate about the impact of such activities and their potential for de-sensitising participants has a long way to run.

What is obvious is that multimedia has a potential for good as well as for bad and it would be a disservice to write it off because of some of the current content.

Within five years it is estimated that the majority of jobs in America will demand information technology skills. You can bet that Britain will not be far behind.

One of the disappointments in the survey is the minority of pupils who use educational computing programmes, although at 29% the proportion which has access to the Internet is encouragingly high, as is the role that schools seem to be taking in providing that access.

Using a computer does not have to be limited to a febrile engagement with Mortal Kombat.

With the introduction of Media Studies in the forthcoming Higher Still reform of upper secondary schooling, schools are being asked to recognise the role of media texts in today's society.

In the early twentieth century the great threat to the curriculum was the relative newcomer, English literature. At the beginning of the twenty-first century media studies might still face a similar backlash.

Ignoring the choices young people are already making will not enrich their experience of the media or help them to make sense of the world around them.

Media studies in the curriculum should encourage and might perhaps even validate real personal choice. The findings of our survey highlight the relevance of this increasingly important subject.

The survey also reveals a need to promote Scottish media texts to young people. Scottish newspapers and radio stations are well represented but where are the Scottish novels, television programmes, films and music?

Media courses are now offered in nine Scottish universities and in numerous further education colleges.

The media industries risk their future audiences by ignoring young people and cultural bodies have much to do in ensuring that the youth audience is addressed.

Media production in Scotland is on the increase but is it reaching the teenage audience at home?

The survey suggests probably not yet.

THE ''thief in the corner'' seems to be slipping, in terms of its diligence and tenacity.

Television is not stealing as much of young people's time as it used to. According to our findings, early teenagers are spending two and a half hours less in front of the television compared with their counterparts nearly 10 years ago. In 1988 boys spent on average twenty one and a half hours a week watching the box. It is now down to 19 hours. Among girls, the average has fallen from 19 to 16 hours.

Based on their response to the question which asked them to name their favourite programme, boys are already well on their way to becoming armchair fans, if not couch potatoes. Among their most popular programmes are Match of the Day (5% of the total) and They Think It's All Over (4%). But the X-Files was most popular (6%). With these viewing habits, it seems likely that boys will be the future target audience of satellite television.

Soaps are more popular with the girls, with 42% naming one as their favourite programme. EastEnders was the choice of 16%. The Australian soaps remain compulsory viewing with Home and Away receiving 13% of the female vote and Neighbours 12%.

Although EastEnders is the most popular programme overall with 9.4%, only 3% of boys plumped for it. Friends attracts significant numbers of boys and girls. But the range of named programmes is disappointingly narrow. Only one child selected the news and no-one mentioned documentaries.

There was little change from the 1988 figures in the video-viewing category. On average girls will watch two videos a week, rising to three among boys.

The most popular genre is comedy (19% overall) but particularly liked by girls (23%). But, perhaps surprisingly, the second choice among the girls was horror (14% of the female vote).

Even more popular with the boys than comedy is the all-action hero. Action movies were selected by 38% of all boys with a further 4% saying that violent videos were their favourite.

One-third of pupils did not name a favourite type of video, although many watched a significant number of videos every week. And whereas 29% of pupils in Highland and Argyll and Bute watch more than two videos a week, the figure rises to 39% in Renfrewshire and Inverclyde.

The average second year pupil will also visit the cinema once a month. A similar picture emerged in a UK survey of 7-14 year-olds in 1995. The Scottish figures for visiting the cinema more often than that (classified as regular cinema-goers) is 33%.

Inevitably there are geographical differences in cinema-attendance figures. In Highland and Argyll and Bute where there are fewer screens and travelling distances are longer only 14% said they visited the cinema more than once a month. But in Renfrewshire the figure rises to 41% and in Inverclyde, with the opening of the Waterfront Cinema, going ''to the pictures'' is once again popular. More than half of Inverclyde youngsters said they went to the cinema more than once every month.

The local cinemas were popular with this age group. Twenty-nine per cent named one of the relatively small, local cinemas as the one they would be most likely to visit. In Renfrewshire the support for the now-closed Kelburne was as high as 30% but multiplexes were also popular receiving 24% support from all those surveyed. It may be that, at 13, being able to get to the cinema under your own steam is attractive. But going to a multiplex often means being taken there and picked up later.

qAre young people becoming more interested in music or is it just background noise?

Sixty-five per cent of those asked said that they did other things while listening to music while only 4% said they gave it their full attention. But the figures suggest that young people are listening to more music than before, even if it is only in the background.

For girls it has risen to just under eight hours per week, 50 minutes more than in the last survey. Boys now spend five hours with the CD or a tape on, an hour and a half more than their predecessors in 1988.

For some the music is never off. Seven per cent of girls say that they listen to more than 21 hours a week, while 4% of boys do likewise.

What are they listening to? Whether it is in the Highlands, the Central Belt or Argyll, 14% are listening to hours and hours of the Spice Girls.

The group appeals equally to boys and girls and is the only named group to do so, although rave music also crosses the gender divide with 11% of teenagers preferring it.

Oasis has the support of the boys and Boyzone wins the hearts of 14% of the girls.

Given that 58% of those surveyed could be classified as within the Radio Clyde ''footprint'' it is hardly surprising that Clyde was named by 26% overall as their favourite radio station. Within Clyde's own area the figure rises to 44%.

The only other station which received a significant mention was Atlantic. It was the favourite of 19%. Radio One attracted only 10% of all youngsters. It was most popular only in the Highlands.

Computer games were not included in the 1988 survey and the Internet was not an option for teenage amusement or enlightenment.

Have they taken over from the television as the new ''thief in the corner'' of the teenage bedroom rather than the living room?

More than 60% said they regularly played computer games, but there are marked gender differences. Among boys, 81% play computer games and spend on average five hours and 45 minutes hunched over the console every week. But if only those who regularly played them are taken into account the real time devoted to computer games rises to nearly seven hours a week.

Sport-based games are popular with the boys with 10% selecting Fifa97. The more aggressive games such as Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat and Doom account for about 10% of those preferred by boys.

Among girls, 54% had no interest in computer games. Girls spend on average one hour 35 minutes at the console. Again, if only those who play computer games are considered, the real time figure is nearer three hours 40 minutes.

Not only are fewer girls playing computer games, their choice of games is also markedly different. The most popular games with girls were the lighter Sonic and Mario.

If jobs in the future will demand information technology skills it is worrying that girls seem to be so little attracted to computers. Games, however, do not tell the whole story.

Although only 16% overall said they regularly used educational computer programs, slightly more were girls than boys.

Encyclopaedias such as Encarta were the most commonly mentioned programmes and girls who used them spent about half an hour on them every week. Boys who used educational programmes were more likely to spend about forty-five minutes on them.

In our survey, 29% of boys and 28% of girls had access to the Internet. Thirty-seven per cent of girls who used the Internet said they did so at school or in the library. Only 30% who regularly accessed the Internet said they did so at home or at a friend's house.

With boys the picture is almost the reverse. Forty-seven per cent of boys who used the Internet did so at home or at a friend's house while only 19% used the facilities at school or in the library.

Boys also seemed more prone to surfing, spending an average of an hour and a half ''online''. Girls were more likely to disconnect after 45 minutes.

Newspapers are still popular with young teenagers. As many as 70% of those questioned said they read a paper but, again there are significant gender differences.

Boys said they spent on average 10 minutes a day reading a paper, with the sports pages being most popular. Only 13% said they read the whole newspaper. TV listings were the only other area of the newspaper specifically mentioned.

Only 63% of girls claimed to be readers of newspapers and while 16% read the whole paper, 12% said that they used only the TV pages and 11% picked out the sports section as the most important.

Although girls spend slightly less time reading newspapers, they are reading more widely. For the press the worrying finding is that in 1997 girls are spending nearly twenty minutes less on newspapers each week than the girls of 1988 did, in keeping with a general decline in the amount of time spent reading. Overall, most teenagers said they read a tabloid.

Nearly 80% said they usually read a magazine but this time it is the girls who spend more time reading. The average girl spends one hour and 35 minutes every week reading through a magazine while 17% said that they spent more than three hours a week reading articles in their favourite magazine.

The most popular magazine with the girls is Sugar, followed by Shout, then It's Bliss. What is disappointing is the narrowness of the range and the fact that these magazines - which are very similar - are being read throughout the country. Only 9% of girls said they did not buy a magazine.

Among boys, there is a slightly wider range of content but most are to do with sport. Boys, it appears, are spending lots of time reading about sport but leaving very little time for taking part. The most popular magazine among boys is Rangers News with 11% of boys saying they are regular readers. Shoot is a close rival at 8%. Few boys mentioned computer magazines perhaps because they can can be expensive.

When asked how much time they spent reading books, 38% of all respondents failed to give a reply. What lies behind the headline increase in the amount of time that boys spend reading is a widening gap between the readers and the non-readers. Those who are reading, are reading more but there is a growing proportion of boys who are not reading at all.

Our survey has discovered that 50% of boys failed to enter any figure for the amount of time spent reading books. If 50% are not reading books at all, the other 50% are spending about three hours and 15 minutes each week with their books.

It is interesting to note that it is often the boys who are spending a lot of time on computers who are also reading most. But spending a significant amount of time watching television does not seem to encourage boys to read, mainly because they are often watching sports' programmes.

Among the boys, 10% named Roald Dahl as their favourite author, perhaps a reflection of classroom-related rather than private reading, while 15% of girls said they read the Point Horror series in their own time.

The girls spend an average of just under three hours reading every week although this also masks the fact that 27% of girls did not put a figure on the amount of time they spent reading.

Reading books appears to be much less popular with girls than it was in 1988, when the average was just over five hours.