Youthquakes in a Post-Truth Era: Exploring Social Media News Use and Information Verification Actions Among Global Teens and Young Adults

Abstract

Teaching information verification skills has become increasingly important in the current post-truth era. Through surveys and interviews with teenagers and young adults in the Middle East and United States, this study explores the changing patterns of social media use for news and actions they take to verify news stories online. Findings show younger students are moving toward more visual platforms, such as Instagram, and private messaging apps to get news. Information verification activities, however, are more frequently practiced by older people who use Facebook and Twitter. Implications for journalism and mass communication curricula are discussed.

Keywords

credibility media literacy Millennials social media information seeking journalism and mass communication education

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