Science Café: The future of news
How do you stay up to date with what is happening in the world?
If you ask young people (aged 16-24) this question, 78% answer: through social media. Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat dominate the media landscape for young people. Their parents' generation (aged 40-65), on the other hand, uses conventional journalistic media (news sites, television, radio, newspapers) to stay informed. Do these figures illustrate that older and younger people live in different worlds? And if so, what does that mean?
One of the things that stands out in research into the media behavior of young people is that news on social media appears automatically. "The news finds me" is the attitude of many young people. Moreover, those social media often have an angle that is relevant to their (young) users. Older people are used to seeking out the news themselves. They focus on traditional news media, which generally apply classic journalistic principles, whereas that is not necessarily the case on social media.
Prof. Irene Costera Meijer, professor emerita of Journalism Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, was recently involved in two reports on news consumption among young people. For the Scientific Council for Government Policy, she wrote a working paper titled "Changing media use by young people: implications for the role and significance of journalism in a democracy." For the Dutch Media Authority, she was a co-author of the research report "Young people, news, and social media. A look at the future of news."
At the Science Café, she will discuss the different news habits of both generations and their significance for the position of, trust in, and interest in news. She also shows that young people do not form one homogeneous group. Differences in gender, age, education, and cultural background matter when it comes to media use. Reassuringly, her research shows there is no crisis of trust in news: 94% of young people trust the news, while only 6% distrust it. These percentages are the same as those for older people. However, classic journalistic media have a major task: to reach young people as well. That is of great importance for a stable democracy.
live music: Dubio
moderator: Ilse Roelofsen
