Analysis: If you want to reach the 71% of young people interested in news, try making a podcast or a video
This year’s Digital News Report Ireland reflects that young people are roaming widely in the online media landscape and are often only stopping briefly to graze and sample, before moving on and searching for the latest viral hit. News publisher websites need to hook them in quickly to retain their interest.
Only 30% of 18-24-year-olds say they are very or extremely interested in news. If you add in those who are 'somewhat interested’ then the total is 71%. Perhaps it is this last group of the ‘somewhat interested’ who can still be swayed by compelling content? This age group says it likes international and local news the most, but it is also the age group with the least interest in political coverage or in politics in general. This is worrying in a year of local and European elections, with national elections around the corner.
So how do those aged 18-24-year-olds find news? At the moment it’s social media and straightforward ‘search’ but this could be about to change. Last month Hugh Linehan, writing in the Irish Times, warned that a "Googlepocalypse" is sweeping the US, in which a Google generative AI program (AI Overviews) will kill off the "link economy" and with it the last iteration of an "ecosystem that supported content creation and communication".
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Professor Colleen Murrell from Dublin City University's Institute of Future Media Democracy and Society on the 2024 Reuters Report
This software, which is currently having some teething problems around accuracy, hasn’t been rolled out in Ireland yet and this year’s Reuters Report doesn’t reflect that the older search function for news is dead. However, with the appearance of AI chatbot interfaces on the horizon, social media companies are spooked and are increasingly desperate to keep readers on their platforms through a mixture of algorithm tweaking and content change.
In our survey, respondents were asked to select all the ways they came across news online. The largest number of 18–24-year-olds said they discovered news via social media (41%), which suggests a certain passivity or potluck approach as most social media platforms have de-prioritised news. The next top choices were ‘using a search engine for a keyword for the name of a particular website’ (39%) or ‘using a search engine for a keyword about a particular news story’ (37%), both of which point to a more active searching model. A significantly smaller group (24%) said they went directly to a news website or app.
Nonetheless, some of this age group is willing to pay to receive ‘an online news service’ and subscriptions are up 7 percentage points from last year to 26%. These consumers are not necessarily rushing to traditional and digital media with their euros: two of the top four media brands they access regularly are free -- RTÉ News Online (14%) and BBC News Online (8%), plus the Irish Times (9%) and TheJournal.ie (8%).
Read more: How should media literacy operate in an age of disinformation?
When asked to select all the social media websites they used for any reason, (not just for news), the most popular choice was YouTube (58%), followed by Instagram and WhatsApp (54% each), Snapchat (49%), and TikTok (42%). Facebook trailed some way behind (26%) along with Facebook Messenger (14%). When asked about social media use for news, the deck of cards was shuffled and the numbers generally came down: Top was YouTube (31%), followed by Instagram (26%); TikTok (20%), Snapchat (16%) and WhatsApp (13%).
Although young people’s loyalty right now is to social media, relying on it for news can be a perilous option when almost two thirds of them also say they are concerned about ‘what is real and fake online’. Now with the growth of AI, we will all encounter more problems with trusting what we see and read in terms of mis- and dis-information. The combined 18-34 year age groups claim to have the most AI awareness but two-thirds of them also say they are uncomfortable with news produced mostly by AI, with only ‘some human journalist oversight’.
In the meantime, big tech companies and media companies are trialling adjustments to content to try to lure in and keep the young on their sites. One answer appears to be rolling out more short online news videos, which are particularly popular with young men (77%) and women (66%) under the age of 35, who watch these once a week or more. Smaller numbers also like watching live online video streaming and longer online news videos.
From Reuters Institute, Key findings in 2 minutes from the 2024 Reuters study on news consumption worldwide, based on a survey of 95,000+ online news users in 47 markets
Those aged 18-24 enjoy the following video topics the most: International news, entertainment and celebrity, lifestyle (sports, arts), and education. They watch these videos mostly on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram; with Facebook, news websites or apps, X (Twitter), Snapchat and Twitch bringing up the rear.
Short news videos, especially those with viral popularity, represent the instant gratification end of today’s media diets. They are engaging but not nourishing. Whereas our previous reports have pointed to evidence that news consumers prefer reading text to watching video, this is changing for younger consumers. Some studies have argued that 15 second TikTok videos are part of the problem that results in the shorter attention spans of teenagers, a phenomenon that Julie Jargon, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has labelled, "TikTok brain".
But all is not lost for the long-form category of news. Of the 65% of young people who listen regularly to podcasts, their favourite topics are: ‘specialist subjects’ (28%), ‘news, politics and international events’ (26%), ‘contemporary life’ (crime and societal issues), and sport (16%). Perhaps politicians hoping to engage young people in the run up to the national elections, should start up entertaining political podcasts and host them on social media sites?
This year's Digital News Report Ireland is supported by Coimisiún na Meán
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
