Investigating the Media Priority of Adolescents and Youths in Police Security-Training Programs

Currently, social security organizations are using a variety of media to educate people about the needs of the community, and being aware of people's media preferences has a major impact on optimal media use. Therefore, the present study aimed at determining the media priority of adolescents and youths in police security-training programs.

This research has been conducted using mixed method. The target population includes adolescents and young people in Hamedan city in 2018; 400 individuals were selected through cluster sampling in the quantitative phase and 40 individuals were selected through snowball sampling method in the qualitative phase. Data gathering tool was a five-option Likert-scale interview and researcher-made questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.85).

The findings showed that the rate of using media by adolescents (mean 3.16 and p <0.01) and youths (mean of 3.24 and p <0.01) in Hamadan were higher than the average; and their media preference for receiving police security-training program was is first in the audio-visual media and later in the multi-sensory, visual, auditory, and written media, respectively. Accessibility, ease of use, diversity, being up-to-date, realistic and interactive features are the most important reasons for adolescent media preference and interest, media habit, attractiveness, creativity, reliability and credibility, respectively, for receiving police security-training programs..

Adolescents and young people are more interested in audiovisual media, especially digital, than other media. Therefore, the law enforcement can consider their media preference for transmitting security-training programs to attract adolescents and young audiences to their educational programs.