What is it and where do they find it? Adolescents’ definitions of “news”, consumption patterns and citizenship concepts

Research shows that young people get their information on most topics mainly online and increasingly via (algorithmically curated) social media, while older adults more often use mass media, too. This constitutes a growing fragmentation of news repertoires (set of channels and sources used for news consumption) between cohorts. Given today’s high-choice media environment and unprecedented levels of personalization of media diets, scholars started to question if an overarching public sphere with a common news agenda (set of most important topics), conceptualized as a necessary condition of participatory democracy, is still given under these circumstances. This resulted in research about filter bubbles, disinformation, political polarization and fragmentation of audiences over the last years. What is mainly missing in the literature is research into the understandings and practices of young people around news use on the one hand, and on possible fragmentation of news agendas based on different news repertoires on the other: Do different societal groups come across the same set of topics in their daily media diets? Where do they find their information? Do they consider the same issues as salient, on which they as citizens or the government should act upon? This paper constitutes the first part of a bigger research project and aims to close the first gap. It focuses on the definitions of “news” that teenagers have, on their respective news repertoires, consumption practices and underlying citizenship concepts: What kind of information do they consider as news? How often do they follow them? Why is that important to them? On what channels and in what social contexts do they come across which topics? Teenagers’ understandings may differ substantially from politicians’, teachers’ and researchers’ definitions. Profound understanding of the knowledge and conceptualizations that young people have as a basis for their active citizenship is therefore crucial, even more so, as research has consistently shown that corresponding practices and patterns are developed during adolescence and remain remarkably stable over time. I will use a Q sort activity with think aloud method, followed by explorative qualitative interviews with teenagers in Austria (aged 14-18). As active voting right is granted with 16 years, there is interesting variance in terms of (formalized) participation rights within the age group. Ideally the data allows for the inductive elaboration of types of news repertoires and types of conceptualizations of news and inferences to underlying citizenship concepts. Contributions to the growing research into subjective definitions of key concepts in citizenship education and to audience studies (news repertoires and consumption habits) are expected. Lastly, this explorative qualitative research constitutes an important first step of research into possible news agenda fragmentation between age groups.