20.Yüzyılın en popüler haber verme araçlarından biri olan radyo mecrası bu özelliğini yirmi birinci yüzyılda yitirmeye başladı. Önce televizyon daha sonra da internet ve ona bağlı olarak gelişen sosyal medya ve mobil medya radyonun haber verme işlevini gölgede bıraktı. İkinci dünya savaşında, soğuk savaş yıllarında en önemli propaganda aracı olan radyo günümüzde bir müzik kutusuna dönüşmüş durumda. Sahip olduğu özellikler bakımından hala önemli bir haber verme mecrası olmasına rağmen özellikle genç nesillerde mecra bir haber mecrasından çok eğlence mecrası olarak görülmektedir. Bu, radyonun haber verme işlevini olduğu kadar tematik haber radyolarını da olumsuz etkilemektedir. Türkiye'de özel radyo kanallarının yayına başlaması ile birlikte sayısında artış olan tematik haber radyoları istediği ilgiyi alamamakta ve yaşamlarını ekonomik anlamda sıkıntılarla sürdürmektedir. Bağımsız girişimciler tarafından işletilen radyolar kapanırken, medya holdinglerinin bir parçası olarak faaliyet gösteren haber radyoları ekonomik kaynaklarını ait oldukları medya gruplarından sağlamaktadır. Bu durum, haber radyoların istihdamını olduğu gibi onların ayakta kalmasını da olumsuz etkilemektedir. Peki haber radyolarının ve radyonun haber verme işlevine bu kadar olumsuz etki eden faktörler nelerdir? Bu çalışma, bu sorunun yanıtını geleceğin medya çalışanları olan iletişim fakültesi son sınıf öğrencilerine uygulanan bir araştırma ile bulmaya çalışıyor. Bugünün gençleri, geleceğin medya çalışanları radyonun haber verme işlevi ve tematik haber radyoları hakkında ne düşünüyor? Radyonun haber verme işlevinin yerini hangi mecralar aldı? Radyo mecrasının sahip olduğu "haber verme" misyonu artık eski değerini yitirdi mi? Bu kapsamda çalışmada iletişim fakültesi öğrencilerine radyoda haber dinleme alışkanlıkları ile ilgili bir anket uygulanmış ve "radyo" ve "haber" kavramlarının bugünün gençleri gözünde ki işlevi değerlendirilmiştir

Radio which was one of the most popular news coverage tools of the 20th century started losing that popularity in the 21st century. First television and then the internet and social media and mobile media that developed in parallel with the internet overshadowed the news coverage function of the radio. The radio that was the most important propaganda tool during the 2nd World War and cold war is today nothing more than a music box. Although it is still an important news coverage tool due to certain aspects, particularly young generations see it as an entertainment channel rather than a news coverage channel. This situation creates a negative impact on the news coverage function of the radios as well as the thematic news radios. In Turkey the number of news radios start to increase after 1990s. Especially the 2000s were the golden years of new radios. Thematic news radios that increased in number with the emergence of private radio channels in Turkey do not receive the necessary interest and they maintain their presence with economic struggles. Radios managed by independent entrepreneurs are closed and news radios that are shown as a part of the media holdings receive their economic life sources from their media groups. The radios who belong to media companies were able to survive but the individuals weren’t able to live and almost all individual radios were closed. The ones who survived were the news radios of TV channels. These news radios made use of scale of economy and they were able to cut their high content with the use of TV news content in their radios. The ones who created original radio news content were not able to pay this high costs and since they weren’t able to make ad revenue they stop their content costs. This situation leads to negative effects on the employment at news radios and challenges them with respect to survival. So, what are the factors that lead to such negative effects on news radios and news coverage function of the radio? This study attempts to find the answer of this question through a survey applied to the last grade students of communication faculties of news coverage who are the prospective media professionals. What do young generations of today and media professional of the future think about the news coverage function of the radio and thematic news radios? Which channels replaced the news coverage function of the radio? Did radio lose the former value of its “news coverage” mission? For this purpose students of communication faculties were applied a questionnaire on their habits of listening to the radio for news. In the conclusion of the study the function of “radio” and “news” in the eye of today’s young generation is evaluated. The aim of this study is to make a determination on how the university students look to the news content in the radio. The main research questions are do the university students regard radio as a news tool in media?, Do the news formatted radios are listened by the university students?, What is the listening trend of the news radios in the target of university communication faculty last class students? And What is the main news source of the communication faculty students in media. Within this scope there has been prepared a questioner and this was applied to 639 university communication faculty students. The sample was selected from the communication faculties in Turkey in the city of Istanbul. The aim of selecting this sample was to see the ideas of the “future media workers” who will be in the media industry. The aim of this research was to find out the perspective of this target group for the news radios. According the findings the communication faculty students of Turkey within İstanbul city listen the radio less than one hour. The 56, 8 % of the students listen to radio less than one hour. More than the 50% of the students listen to the radio from mobile sources like smart phones and ipad. According to the findings radio is the less preferred media in news gathering and as an information source. The 62% of the communication students listen to the news in radio, but they prefer to listen news within a small time period. The 44,6% of the sample mentioned that they would prefer to have listen news in radio about 4 to 5 minutes. According to the statements of the questioner the communication faculty students prefer to listen less talk in the radio and as a result of this they prefer to listen less news content. The target group doesn’t like to listen too much the news formatted radio and they prefer to listen music oriented radio stations. According to the hypothesis which were tested with T Test, the communication faculty students don’t prefer to listen news formatted radio stations. The news function of radio has lost its old popularity and TV and new media with social media has a bigger importance as a news source than radio. Radio has been a music box in the eyes of the new generation and this has been approved in this study. The new generation even the ones who has media education and who will be the future media workers also believe that radio has lost its function in the media environment. This shows how the function of a new media tool changes the functions of the previous media. Once TV was released it had taken the popularity of radio, new media and internet took the popularity of TV and now social media replaces all. Social media which has a user generated content and which as a quick way of releasing news has taken the function of news in radio. So radio has turned itself to a music and entertainment box. Today radio is a music weapon instead of news weapon in media. This is a big question mark for the new function of radio.