to high rate of readership in Karachi, which is among adults 69% and among youth 44% .By excluding Karachi, the ratio remains very poor for interior Sindh. The table and graph elaborate the province-wise ratio of newspaper readership in Pakistan.
Ratio of Newspaper Readership
Province Among Adults
(+18 Years) Among Youth
(10 â?? 17 Years)
Punjab 31% 16%
Sindh 49% (Karachi 69% &
Interior Sindh 29%) 34% (Karachi 44% & Interior Sindh 24)
N.W.F.P. 25% 16%
Baluchistan 28% 19%
Average 33 21

Newspaper readership and buyer-ship are two different concepts. Every reader is not a buyer of newspapers. One newspaper read by a lot person at homes, offices, shops and libraries. According to Pakistan Readership Report 2002-03 of the Gallup Survey, in Punjab 10.17 readers read one copy, while in Sindh this ratio is 5.57, in N.W.F.P this ratio is 8.47 and in Baluchistan this ratio is 13.98.9 Considering the economic peculiarities and rural character of the region, it is understandable that the number of readers per copy in Baluchistan is substantially higher than the national average of 7.7 It is necessary to mention that after including the ratio of readership per copy in FATA/FANA and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the national average of readers per copy is 7.7.

NEWS SEEKING PATTERNS

In general, the amount of news reading tends to increase with age, education, and administrative status. News reading increases very rapidly through the academicians and administrators. Summarizing reading patterns by education appears that readers on lower end of educational curve tend to use newspaper for entertainment, sensational news, and political. Newspaper readership often measured by quantifying a particular indicator of newspaper-reading activity, readership tends to be viewed far too simplistically.

Qamar (2002, p.18) said in his thesis of M.Sc. Mass Communication entitled â??The comparison of Different Newspaper Reading habits of Male & Femaleâ?. His comparative study of different newspaper reading habits of men and women in Pakistan meant to find out that; to what extent newspaper reading habits differ from each other. The researcher wrote in his research study that women are interested in reading newspaper. It was found that 56 percent female readers read newspaper daily. The survey indicated that high percentage of women read newspaper although not more than men.

It is found that men spend more time for reading newspaper per day than women, as 40 percent men read newspaper more than an hour, while there are no women spend more than an hour for reading newspapers. Men read newspaper more than women in terms of reading large volume of newspaperâ??s material. Men like to read hard news while women like to read soft news.

According to Herald Media Survey (1997) in Scotland revealed in an article â??What they Readâ?? The survey showed that newspapers are still popular with young teenager in Scotland. More than three quarters of boys said they spent on average ten minutes a day for reading newspaper with sports page being the most popular only 13 percent of boys read the whole newspaper. Although girls spend slightly less time for reading newspaper, they are reading more widely.

Media researchers Mehta and Paralikar (1999) investigated through conducting a study that news-seeking pattern of the selected media were studied in relation to spent time, news language, news area, kind of news and news aspects. The overall findings of their study revealed that majority of respondents described to two English newspapers, because those newspapers give complete news and have good coverage of events. Overall and sex wise newspaper used as medium for seeking news most frequently. The kinds of news sought through newspaper were political, social, health educational, etc. Highly significant differences existed in the news-seeking patterns of female respondents with respect to spent time for seeking news, kinds of news and news aspects.

The kinds of news sought through this media with highest intensity indices were political, social, national and international current affairs, educational, sports, science, economics and business news. The other indices were headlines, detailed news, news briefs, articles, and editorials. The researcher conducted research on assessing the importance of news, to explore where news fits in daily life.

James (2004, p.3â??4) Thus, we risk misunderstanding its true nature. As we become comfortable employing automatic processing with its focus on efficiency, we let our skills of meaning construction atrophy. With weaker skills, we come to depend more and more on the media to tell us what is important and who we should be. For centuries, getting access to information was a major problem for virtually all human. With rise of the mass media throughout the 20th century, the barriers to access were substantially reduced, especially with spread of Radio, Television and then Computer. Today, not only information easily available to almost anyone; information keeps getting produced at an ever increasing rate. The information problem is no longer about how to get access. The much more pressing problem is how to keep up with all the news-seeking patterns.

PRACTICAL USAGE OF NEWSPAPERâ??S INFORMATION

Andersen says in his article entitled â??Communicating Information across Cultures: Understanding How Others Workâ? published on September 2002. There are specific communications differences between scientists and humanists that are created by their information-seeking patterns. An excellent example of academicâ??s cultural differences in the field of information seeking and uses, information-seeking research looks at how individuals go about finding materials that they need in order to satisfy informational needs both professional and recreational. In the ethnographic experience of an unfamiliar worship service, an individual might gather clues about standing-sitting-kneeling through watching others, through listening for directions from an authority, or through written materials available somewhere in the place of worship.

The academicians of AIOU usually follow the patterns established by their peers, relying upon mentors in their fields to guide them in graduate school and early professional development. Differences of style come from both individualâ??his or her own personal traits, predispositions, and biases, and from training that he or she has received in a particular discipline. Thus, culture including ways of individuals seeks information passed on through apprenticeship and practice.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDUCATION AND NEWSPAPER

The relationship between education and newspaper readership is far from simple. First, newspaper readership correlates positively with information seeking, including information about civic responsibilities, and need for cognition, the pursuit of higher level reasoning. A body of research correlates interest in information about political, public policy and social issues to news seeking. For example, a panel study by Hugh Culbertson and others found that focused attention, interest and involvement in political issues correlated positively with news seeking. The study found that attention either to newspapers or to television news content predicted provide knowledge. However, the study of newspaper readers were more cognitively involved than television viewers.

Maxwell McCombs and Paula Poindexter found a positive correlation between the frequency of newspaper readership and perceived civic duty to keep informed. (Civic duty encompasses perceived obligation to vote and to support fundamental liberties, including free expression.) Similarly, in a comparison study of nonreaders, single newspaper readers and multiple newspaper readers conducted by Wayne Wanta and others, nonreaders demonstrated particularly weak motivation to use newspapers to understand events or to known informed about civic affairs.

One study found that highly educated are more tolerant of others’ freedom of expression than less well-educated, regardless of whether the issue in question supported by left or right-wing groups. The same study found that increased cognitive sophistication was even more predictive of support for free expression than level of education alone. Other studies using cognitive variables such as need for cognition have produced similar findings.

Rather than examine the possible multi-faceted link between education on free-expression issues and news seeking, research has tended to focus on differences among newspapers that may explain differences in civic knowledge among and between readers and nonreaders. For example, one study suggests that “not all newspapers are created equal.” The study measured differences in civic knowledge among readers of different types of newspapers and found that all newspapers may not benefit equally from increased interest in civic affairs among potential readers. Because readers tend to gather information about local affairs from local newspapers and information about national issues from metropolitan papers, the selection of news source was predictive type of civic affairs knowledge possessed by the reader. Therefore, desire for increased knowledge of national events would not be correlated with increased reading of local newspapers. However, research by Dan Drew and David Weaver found, to the contrary, that readers of local newspapers sought and were knowledgeable about both local and national civic affairs.

FACULTY MEMBER AND NEWSPAPER READERSHIP

Tak Wing Chan & John H. Goldthorpe (2004) writes their research article entitled â??Social Status of Faculty Member and