Open Collections

Parsons, Savannah

University of British Columbia

Over 60% of surveyed Gen Z members in Canada say they seek out entertainment over news when using the internet, compared to just over half of millennial and Gen X members. Although research has examined young people’s content preferences, it has yet to fully explore how the tension between journalistic presentation formats and digital media presentation formats may be creating barriers for youth engagement with news. This research project takes a qualitative approach to examine what news presentation formats Gen Z members perceive as more engaging or less engaging, and why this perception exists. Drawing on group interviews with 36 students (18-25 years old) in Vancouver, card sort tasks and open discussion questions in groups uncovered the experiences, perceptions, and peer norms that underlie Gen Z members’ engagement with different news presentation formats. Findings highlight that a high-choice media environment coupled with blurred lines between entertainment and news delivery platforms has led these Gen Z members to construct new rituals around news consumption, which include the reconceptualization of news being something separate from journalism. Uncovering this perception has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, these findings support the efficacy of an integrated theoretical approach to youth news engagement, which includes both preference and infrastructural journalistic perspectives, as well as uses and gratifications theory and psychosocial developmental theory. Practically, this research provides a new understanding of methods for engaging youth, including the addition of peer-to-peer presentations of news, altering presentations to match the brevity and colloquiality of social media, and facilitating youth’s agency in deciding when to seek these news media. This new understanding is crucial in a media environment where various actors and content types compete for people’s attention.

Text

2024-04-18

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87879

Journalism

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/