What Younger Adults Want From the News - Rob Horowitz

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™

 

View Larger +

PHOTO: Jason Goodman, Unsplash

As with politics, the best way to get a sense of where news is headed is to understand the points of view and information habits of younger adults. Those entering adulthood will be making their presence felt in the marketplace and the public square for many years to come. Their importance is also enhanced by the hard reality of mortality. As older generations inevitably thin out, their tastes and preferences become less important to news producers chasing viewers, readers, and advertising dollars.

 

A new study of the information consumption habits and attitudes of 18 to 25-year-olds provides a road map for journalists and media companies seeking to deliver news in a way that is appealing to young adults. Conducted by the Knight Lab at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications with assistance from Google News Initiative and FT Strategies, the study draws on multi-hour interviews with young adults in the United States, Nigeria and India.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

 

Not surprisingly, the study finds that younger news consumers are more skeptical than older generations of the information received from media sources.  “Research has shown that younger consumers tend to start from a position of assuming that information cannot be trusted and that it is often intentionally misleading,” documents the study.  This is understandable, since people in the 18 to 25 age range have grown up “during the rise of online misinformation and disinformation,” as the study asserts.

 

Younger news consumers also strongly prefer hopeful over negative news.  They find a “consistently” adversarial or negative tone a turn-off and often switch off that kind of programming.  Rather, “younger news consumers want the impression that, irrespective of the topic, there is a reason for hope, and scope to find common ground on polarized topics” wrote the study’s authors. 

 

Similarly, younger news consumers want news that “empowers them to take action.”  According to the study, “this could amount to helping them to make a decision or make positive changes in their lives/for their communities. Without this sense of a path forward, research participants expressed feeling powerless in the face of events going on around them.” In other words, they are frustrated by news that just identifies major problems without providing any ways to make the situation better.


When young adults were asked about their ideal news experience, 3 major factors emerged. First, they want information from a trusted source—one they know and trust. Unlike previous generations of news consumers, they put less faith in legacy brands or traditional journalistic credentials and more faith in people’s lived experiences and whether or not they can identify with them.  Admitting and correcting mistakes is an important credibility builder with this age group.

 

Younger news consumers also like information that is of personal significance to them or those they care about. Additionally, they desire engaging storytelling, which is less linear and combines multiple ways of delivering information, including video and text components. “Young consumers' definition of engaging storytelling looks very different to the traditional news report or typical television broadcast segment,” documents the study.

 

As one would expect from these digital natives who had smart phones in their hands during their early teenage years, young adults are sophisticated users of search engines. Additionally, they are continually digitally simul-tasking. Younger adults “fluidly transition between dissimilar tasks (e.g. messaging friends, buying things, watching videos, playing games, catching up on socials, listening to a podcast) while they’re on their phones,” the study’s authors write. For this new generation of consumers, news producers should be aware that undivided attention for their segments and reports will be the exception, not the rule.

 

Providing accurate and useful news and information to emerging adults is a key to their ability to be the informed, responsible, and engaged in their communities, nation and world citizens that are needed for the self-governance that democracy requires in order to thrive. This new study provides invaluable information for anyone interested in effectively communicating with the next generation that will soon be playing an outsized role in shaping our society and forging our future.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.


 

Related Articles

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

 
 

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

I want to follow on Twitter

I want to Like on Facebook