Need to know: Young people’s perceptions of news are changing

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In 1981, French sociologist Jean Baudrillard wrote: “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”

The information economy has exploded since the advent of social media. No longer are audiences solely reliant on traditional news sources such as newspapers and TV – the media landscape has become fragmented, with multiple potential sources of information, from TikTok to podcasts.

Whether this influx of information has resulted in less meaning is up for debate, and worthy of its own analysis. What is clear, however, is that within this busy media environment – once you factor in the rise of misinformation, growing awareness of wellbeing and a recognition of the need for finely tuned critical thinking – you have patterns of news consumption that look quite different from how they did a few years ago, particularly for younger people.

For the past decade, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford has run an annual quantitative study to track how people consume news in 46 markets across six continents. Among younger news audiences (aged 18-30 ), the survey has, in recent years, found greater reliance on social media, with young people identifying less with – and feeling less loyal to – news brands compared with older age groups.

“Broadly driven by the internet, there has been a flattening and fragmentation of the brand landscape of how young people consume news,” says Konrad Collao, founder at Craft, which worked with the Reuters Institute to conduct qualitative research into young people’s attitudes to news in the UK, the US and Brazil.

Craft’s report found that young people didn’t necessarily place more trust or value in mainstream brands, valuing different tonal approaches to news depending on the subject. For example, while TikTok has grown in popularity, young people still value mainstream brands for communicating serious issues. Collao notes: “What young people value are different tones – when the Queen dies, you want Huw Edwards telling you that, you don’t want a TikToker.”

That’s not to say TikTok and its ilk can’t be relied upon – the research found that young people are getting credible news from alternative sources – but rather that socially native news brands tend to allow for more conversational approaches.

Researchers also noticed a distinction between ‘the news’, a narrow understanding of politics and public affairs, and ‘news’ – simply something that has happened.

For Kirsten Eddy, postdoctoral research fellow in digital news at the Reuters Institute, this was clearly illustrated through the qual, with participants discussing a wide range of topics considered to be news – from an episode of Big Brother to a gaming release.

“Younger audiences have a much different understanding of what news entails – there is an incredibly broad understanding of what news is and that really influences what they consume, and when and why they consume it, in ways that have serious implications for many news brands around the world,” says Eddy.

Sense of ‘permacrisis’

The institute’s most recent quantitative survey found longer-term falls in interest in news across age groups and markets – particularly younger audiences, who increasingly choose to avoid news. Around four in 10 under-35s ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ avoid the news, compared with a third of those aged 35 and older.

Across the three countries studied for the research, there was evidence of people opting to avoid ‘the news’ – often to guard mental wellbeing.
Collao explains: “It is not that one group is rejecting news totally, but that ‘the news’ is under pressure from three directions – a flatter landscape, suspicious minds not automatically trusting mainstream brands, and selective news avoidance. In our sample, someone always pulled away at some point because it was all too much.”

Some of this is down to where news is consumed. Seeing an article on social media alongside content from friends and family means news appears in an endless narrative scroll, resulting in fatigue and becoming choosier about engaging.

“Brexit, Covid or the culture wars – these are stories without end. You could see people getting fatigued, so they dip in and out to guard their mental health,” explains Collao. “There is a sense of permacrisis – and the news communicates that.”

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. Such a significant event during the fieldwork meant that those taking part turned to mainstream news brands because, notes Collao, they are trusted and accessible.

“In one diary, we asked people what they were following, and it became all about Ukraine. When something of that magnitude hit, they coalesced around the story and the big mainstream brands.”

Participants also looked to user-generated media for the human story on the ground in Ukraine, with TikTok, Instagram and Twitter being used to share perspectives not just by journalists, but by citizens themselves, including Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Increased scepticism

Despite differences in the markets studied – different types of political polarisation being one – one commonality emerged: young people showed high levels of scepticism towards news, questioning its veracity and the motivations of its sources.

For Eddy, the extent of this was surprising. “For those who practise and study journalism, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on media literacy, ensuring that people are aware of what information they are consuming and have a sense of wariness toward dangerous or false information. In many ways, great practices.

“But younger people who have been told to be critical of information they consume are increasingly sceptical of all information – including from news organisations – and largely question their agendas across the markets we looked at.”

This article was first published in the January 2023 issue of Impact.