I have a confession to make. Having downloaded the BBC news app four years ago, I’ve probably clicked on it about twice. As I consider myself politically engaged, I used to feel guilty about this, until I realised… many of my friends were exactly the same.
Then, the Reuter’s Institute published a report on how young people are consuming the news. It investigated the news consumption habits of twenty young people in the UK and US, and found that despite under-35s having traditional news apps (BBC, Guardian, Telegraph) downloaded, they were among the least used on their phones. All of the participants were consuming news via social media or less mainstream news aggregators.
So, clearly, I was not the only one. But why have traditional news apps failed to engage young people? And what is it about social media apps, and these other aggregators, that draws our attention?
I decided to try and answer these questions by studying five of my friends, all of whom fit the demographic of the Reuters research. As I was interested to find out if there were common reasons for these habits, ethnographic research felt best placed to provide these insights. Interviews and direct observation are a great way to reveal both conscious and unconscious thought patterns, as well as the emotions that drive decision making.
For many brands and companies, understanding why young people behave the way they do is only becoming more important. Generation Z (18-24-year olds) will account for 32% of the population this year, whilst Millennials (25- 34-year olds) will have a 31.5% share. To engage this large demographic requires an insight into their core attitudes, values and lifestyles. This research aims to be a starting point for that.
The Research
In order to understand my friend’s everyday news consumption habits, I used participant observation and digital diaries. This was combined with in-depth interviews and non-intrusive camera work. Interviews are a powerful research tool on their own. But observation also allowed me the opportunity to view important, unscheduled behaviours that might not have been recalled in an interview.
I also felt, because of the cultural desirability tied to keeping up with current affairs, just interviewing the participants might not produce completely honest answers. However, by using digital diaries, I’ve captured how their habits genuinely played out in the context of their everyday lives.
Of course, this research is not in any way representative of all young people. Due to limited time and resources, the sample size is restricted to five. It must also be mentioned that all participants lived in the South and have left leaning political tendencies. However, I still found that these 18-27-year olds shared some significant patterns and habits.
The Participants
The Result
Informing and entertaining
A key finding that came out of the research was that participants wanted their news to be both informative and entertaining. When they reflected on their digital diaries, the apps they visited most frequently always provided content that they thought was important to know, as well as content that was just fun to know:
‘My Twitter is set up so that I have a good mixture of serious news, as well as random, nonsense Twitter memes and celebrity stuff that is enjoyable. Just through scrolling on my timeline, I get informed that Donald Trump has threatened North Korea with military action but also see a thread about a woman who called the police when KFC got her order wrong’ Josh, 27
‘The Week gives me interesting stories…especially these sections where there’s funny little stories and weird things that have happened. They’re usually pretty good and you can share those with people. Like this bit here about a man who painted his dog to look like a tiger’ Joe, 27
Although many of the participants said they made time specifically to keep up to date with the news, this was largely aspirational. When reflecting on their diaries, the majority of participants’ news consumption was a seamless part of their day - they often checked the news as a time filler when they were eating breakfast, bored at work, on lunch breaks, or waiting in queues. And interestingly, when they spoke about ‘checking the news’ what a lot of them actually meant was checking their social media, which is curated to include news content, rather than news apps:
It’s not something I really think about doing, I just check social media when I’m walking places or on a break at work. If something big has happened, then you see everyone talking about it on there’ John, 18
‘In my digital diary, the times I look at it the most are when I want to distract myself from my uni essays’ Hannah, 22
The participants saw consuming the news as recreational and a time of leisure – it makes sense that it should be both informative and entertaining.
‘I see going the news as a break, it’s a big source of relief in the day, it’s always interesting’ Christie, 26
‘I think I read the news partially to stay informed but also because it’s relaxing, even if it is quite bad news, it’s quite relaxing to leaf through and see what’s going on’ Joe, 27
‘The beauty of looking at the news through Twitter is that I can go on it when I’m bored at work and look for funny tweets but see relevant news at the same time’ Josh, 27
Interestingly, none of the participants associated traditional news media outlets with being fun or entertaining:
‘Going on Twitter or Facebook is a break, and I get the news as well, so I get information and enjoyment at the same time. That’s how I can keep up to date with what’s going on. It’s not really as fun to go on the BBC app and see what’s going on. I guess it doesn’t present the news in a fun format’ Hannah, 22
‘I’d rather look at Twitter or something funny, as opposed to going to the BBC or the Guardian. It’s just really dry news stories the whole time… you get deadpan reporting’ Josh, 27
As the news cycle is such a consistent part of young people’s lives, for them to remain engaged their expectations of the news include light-hearted forms of entertainment. It lead me to question whether ‘checking the news’ really existed as a discreet activity for them. My participants weren’t doing the digital equivalent of reading the newspaper, and were unfazed by their news being presented in the same feed as their mate's photos and cat memes.
Trust
All participants believed that it was impossible to get completely impartial news. They felt that all news sources, both traditional and otherwise, contain some bias or political leaning.
For a generation that have grown up in a ‘post-truth era’, they did not necessarily mind this and worked off the premise that the news was largely subjective.
However, they felt that the traditional brands claimed to be impartial, when they were not. This was seen as a problem and resulted in a significant lack of trust. Frequent criticisms included biased reporting, lack of diversity and inciting division:
‘I know the BBC try to not mix commentary with reporting, they try to just do reporting, but they do come under fire a lot for leaning towards political stances, so I don’t think they are that impartial’ Joe, 27
‘Newsrooms are dominated by white middle class people from the South which is why I welcome Tristan Cross’s opinion so much because he has shone a light on how newsrooms do not reflect the entirety of society. They just need to be more diverse places, the population is diverse’ Christie, 26
‘The big news names seem to thrive off the conflict they create by getting two people with completely polarised views on. It’s because that’s what gets them to go viral… but actually is that fair or responsible reporting? They get some climate change denier on and say it’s for ‘balance’… how is it balanced to have someone who is against like 98% of the climate scientist community’ Hannah, 22
Once people consider everything unreliable, the range of sources they can draw on actually increases. They're no longer limited to traditional outlets. Each individual has they own criteria for what they include in their bespoke feed, creating their own sense of balance from a range of commentators.
New Authority
Linked to the erosion of trust in the traditional news outlets is a new-found trust in particular journalists, influencers or politicians that they followed online.
When participants were asked why they trusted these particular people, it was clear they saw the validity of knowledge that is grounded in lived experience and connected with news that was put in the context of real people’s lives:
‘There’s a guy called Tristan Cross who I really like. He’s from somewhere in South Wales, right in the Labour heartlands that have turned to voting Conservative. He’s very working class himself so he can give a proper insight into how people there feel’ Christie, 26
‘I learn more from Twitter than I would do going on the BBC or Guardian apps, I think it’s because they’re more conversational and you get the human-interest side more. I connect with their stories because people are reflecting on their own experiences. For example, with Repeal the 8th, I read so many harrowing stories about women who had to travel to the UK to get an abortion and obviously I would have read the news about it but not to the length that I did on Twitter’ Hannah, 22
They felt personal stories helped them to connect and understand the news better. In particular, the participants appreciated those that were honest, showed vulnerability and were using their experiences to help others:
‘Have you heard of Hannah Jane Parkinson? She’s a left-wing journalist I follow on Twitter, I just love her. She struggles with her mental health and she’s so honest and open about it. It makes her feel human and I like her reporting more because I know she’s truthful’ Christie, 27
‘Hussain Kesvani is a Muslim writing journalist and he tweets a lot about Muslim issues. I just find the stuff he tweets about really interesting and I feel like I understand Islamophobia a bit more’ John, 22
Most participants felt that they could engage in news directly through the experiences of others. Particularly, the experiences of people they would not necessarily have any connection to in real life. It was also evident that honesty and openness were valued more highly than what they felt were erroneous claims to impartiality.
What next?
As I said before, this research is by no means definitive. But it gives us just a small taste into possible reasons behind the declining numbers of young people engaging with traditional brands. It also gives us an insight into what style of online news content young people are connecting with.
The concept of trust was particularly interesting in this context, and a lot more could be done to understand contemporary criteria for reliability. It appeared that trust was more closely aligned to my participants identifying with the individuals doing the reporting, or feeling resonance with their motives for doing so.
Future research should extend the diversity of young people included; those on the other side of the political spectrum, from different socio-economic backgrounds or young people who aren’t engaged with the news at all. It could also explore the idea of paid-for-subscription when people seem to be able to get all they need for free.
I think traditional news media organisations could listen to these ideas as part of their strategy to re-engage young people. Given some of the risks associated with consuming news on social media this is also an important area for society if we are to rebuild trust in genuinely reliable reporting.