Youth Culture Uncovered 2024: The Future of News
This Tuesday, June 11th, The Youth Lab at THINKHOUSE presented Youth Culture Uncovered 2024 - this year’s response to the question that The Youth Lab asks every year: “What’s it like to be young today?” This year’s Youth Culture Uncovered looked at things through the world of NEWS. For this week’s 52INSIGHTS, we give you the download on our event, sharing key themes and inspiration for engaging with the next generation of news consumers.
Why the focus for news in 2024?
1. The Reuters Digital News Report in 2023 highlighted the rise in young people avoiding news, alongside a lower sense of value placed in public service broadcasting relative to older cohorts. While avoiding depressing news can be an act of self-care, it does have massive implications, not just in influencing personal outlooks, but the fabric of society, particularly in a year when half the world goes to vote.
2. The growing penetration of Generative AI is disrupting the news sector, leading to an intensified battle for attention between social media behemoths and news producers over who owns and profits from that attention. More critically, it’s also driving an infodemic of a different kind to the Covid-19 health infodemic, with Europol recently predicting that 90% of the content online in 2026 is likely to be synthetically generated.
3. The rise of the Creator Economy is driving new momentum behind creator journalism, with individual personas reporting on news and occupying spaces in newsfeeds that were previously dominated by legacy news brands.
4. The web continues to transition towards a decentralised web, giving rise to a new phase of digital culture, and continued disruption in terms of online news creation, publishing and distribution.
Claire Hyland, head of The Youth Lab, THINKHOUSE opened the morning with a series of myths around young people's (16-35 year olds) attitudes and behaviours towards news, setting the scene for conversation to debunk the myths and decode the real culture around news, spotlight emerging behaviours, and highlighting new ways of engaging young audiences.
Claire Hyland, head of The Youth Lab, THINKHOUSE said, “Our seven news myths are designed to highlight how our collective understanding of young people’s attitudes and behaviours towards news is not what you might think - with myths there is generally some element of truth, but that’s often only half the story. Decoding the nuance is where you really get a sense of where the future is going. Facilitating a conversation about the future of news with such brilliant panellists has helped to both elevate the industry’s collective understanding of why and how news creation needs to transform, but more importantly sets the scene for future conversations.”
This was followed by a presentation by George Montagu, Head of Insights, FT Strategies, Financial Times, shared highlights of his internationally acclaimed research 'gen z and the Future of News.' touching on trust, personal significance and storytelling. To download The Next Gen News from The Financial Times click here.
This was followed up with two panels that included media and marketing leaders, Mark Little, Mark Coughlan and Prof Colleen Murrell, who explored the new language around news, trust in the media, the issues of transparency and misinformation, and the new modes of news consumption for young people. And a second panel including Andrew Nolan, Seamus Lehane, Aideen Ledwidge Lanigan, Katja Mia, Fiona Frawley and Thinkhouse’s Lucy Carroll, who shared their thoughts on the best way to land news with communities online.
The Future of News - Key Takeouts
📰 The news as a product is broken - not young people. Young people are NOT 'not interested' in the news per se, but they have to work hard to navigate news in a world of information overload. The news needs to reinvent itself to be relevant to young people - considering factors such as topic relevance, format type (embracing cues of infotainment), and a storytelling approach that delivers solutions and clear call to actions.
“The news as a product is broken - not young people. News producers need to understand the young people’s modes of new consumption [sift, substantiate, study, socialise and sensemake] and deliver on these needs.” said George Montagu, head of insights, FT Strategies, The Financial Times.
🤝 Young people may not trust the media as an ‘establishment', but they do trust independent voices of reliable news - individual journalists and content creators who they share an affinity with and a shared sense of lived experiences. Being a legacy news brand with a strong reputation isn’t enough - with the rise of creator journalism, content needs to be “more honest and more in the moment.”
🫶 Driving trust in the media is about being transparent in your process and letting young people judge for themselves. Explainer media is on the up with young people needing help in making sense of ‘the news’, welcoming context to bigger news stories, and easy to understand language, especially for news stories of a political or complex nature.
👂The best news storytelling comes firstly from a place of listening and knowing what people care about, and then presenting a point of view in language that is easy to understand and in formats that are information dense yet entertaining, inviting further conversation.
🙌 While the language around news has been in flux over the last decade, the best way forward is to speak of journalism through this lens of ‘constructive journalism’ - journalism that is solutions-oriented, offers up clear CTAs, and presents a point of view that helps people live their best lives.
“The biggest bias in the media today is a negative one. It can no longer be about leaning into people’s worst instincts. It has to be about the life they want. People are searching for information that helps them to live better lives. We should be having a conversation with young people, not telling them what to do.” said Mark Little, entrepreneur (Storyful | Spotify | Kinzen)
Where Next?
The Youth Lab is finalising its Youth Culture Uncovered work to include learnings from the discussion on The Future of News. To learn more, or book a presentation for your organisation to better understand opportunities to engage young people, email The Youth Lab.
