55.2 percent of respondents are students, 37.6 percent are members of the staff, and the remaining 7.2 percent aren’t directly affiliated with the university (freelancers or alumni, for example). The number of loyal readers in our survey is relatively high: 87.8 has been reading Cursor for several years or longer. Dutch readers use a different medium than English readers: the first group likes to read Cursor on a laptop, whereas the second group prefers a smartphone. Cursor’s most important task by far, readers say, is reporting the news to students, followed by reporting the news to staff members, and exposing problems.

Kinds of content

A large majority (63.5 percent) of visitors to Cursor’s site prefers to read news articles. Background stories come in second place with 23.2 percent. The post popular subjects are: news about national politics, education and research, social issues and TU/e policy. Opinions differ when it comes to the subjects that people would like to read about more often, but several respondents mentioned articles about sports, as well as articles about social and sensitive topics. In addition, readers indicate that they would like to hear more from the Executive Board.

The majority believes that Cursor’s news articles and columns are just long enough. The same is true for our background stories, but 25 percent of respondents feel that these stories are just a bit too short. 

Opinions are divided when it comes to whether or not Cursor is critical enough. The most common answer was ‘critical,’ exactly in the middle. But internationals in particular feel that Cursor’s articles could be a bit more critical.

Critical stance

When asked what Cursor offers that other channels of communication at TU/e don’t, respondents answered:

• ‘a better, more enjoyable style of writing;’
• ‘raising social issues;’
• ‘raising issues within the university;’
• ‘asking and answering critical questions;’
• ‘news with less propaganda/PR;’
• ‘campus life/activities;’
• ‘not too businesslike;’
• ‘showing different sides to a story;’
• ‘giving a platform to opinion pieces/opinions.’

Cursor’s most frequently cited added value according to respondents, is its ‘critical stance towards the university.’

Videos

Viewers generally take a positive view of our videos and feel that they alternate nicely with the text. However, a majority of respondents doesn’t watch the videos for different reasons: they are often in Dutch, circumstances don’t always allow the reader the watch a video, or people prefer to read a text rather than watch a video. Videos about the Intro are valued most.

Socials

Over 75 percent of readers also follow Cursor on social media. Facebook is most popular among Dutch readers, and Instagram is most popular among English-speaking readers. This can partly be explained by the fact that we publish exclusively in English on Instagram, whereas we had to split Facebook into a Dutch and an English page, despite a translation feature.

Cursor would like to thank everyone who took part in our readers’ survey and is grateful for this input. We will keep your compliments, tips and criticism in mind in the (near) future as we continue to report.