Ever since we read this story about Southern Rail’s decision to hand over their Twitter account to a teenager, we’ve been thinking about whether we could replicate some of the same energy and gusto on our own Twitter account.
Enter Matt Raitt. He’s a 21 year old student currently studying media information and technoculture at Western University, in London, Ontario. He’s spent the past three months interning with News Media Canada.
Last week, we decided to pass over to him News Media Canada’s Twitter account. Our hope was to provide a unique perspective on the newspaper industry.
Matt began by introducing himself and has been soliciting questions from our wide audience, using the hashtags #AskMatt and #MattTheIntern, ever since.
“As a young person, I’m in a great position to try and debunk a number of myths held about the reading habits of Millennials,” he says.
“Contrary to popular belief, young people age 18-34 have not completely abandoned print in favor of digital media. Instead, they have adjusted the way they read to suit their ‘on-the-go’ lifestyle.”
In a few posts, Matt has created memes to increase social engagement. These comedic pictures, which were widely circulated on social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook in 2017 (‘Roll Safe,’ and ‘The Floors Is’ featured), remind users of the sheer volume of useless (often laugh provoking) content that is available online.
The captions, which he wrote, reiterate differences in credibility between social media and print.
“It helps to remind people why print still remains popular among all demographics,” he says.
