‘Just the way my generation reads the news’: News consumption habits of youth in Turkey and the UK

Abstract

Audiences’ media use and news consumption behaviour are constantly shifting. Some scholars note that the growing decline in youth’s news consumption raises concerns about the future of democracy in various media systems. This research explores the factors that influence college students’ news consumption behaviour in the United Kingdom and Turkey through an interpretative approach. The data are based on qualitative in-depth interviews with around 50 students studying in major universities in London and Istanbul. The findings show overarching common trends such as increased mobile news access, incidental exposure to news on social media, irregular snacking and verifying of news that drive youth’s news consumption behaviour. Findings also show that traditional media use for news has almost been replaced by online media and the modality of traditional media do not easily fit in with youth’s daily routine of studies, work and commute.

Keywords

Media news news consumption online the UK trust Turkey youth

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aalberg

Blekesaune

Elvestad

(2013) Media choice and informed democracy: Toward increasing news consumption gaps in Europe? The International Journal of Press/Politics 18(3): 281–303. DOI: 10.1177/1940161213485990

Althaus

Tewksbury

(2000) Patterns of internet and traditional news media use in a networked community. Political Communication 17(1): 21–45.

Antunovic

Parsons

Cooke

(2018) “Checking” and googling: stages of news consumption among young adults. Journalism 19(5): 632–648.

Banaji

Cammaerts

(2015) Citizens of nowhere land: youth and news consumption in Europe. Journalism Studies 16(1): 115–132.

Bayazit

(2016) Turkey. In: Noam

(ed) Who Owns the World’s Media? Media Concentration and Ownership Around the World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp.387–425.

Bergman-Dutta

(2004) Complementarity in consumption of news types across traditional and new media. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 48(1): 41–60.

Bek-Gencel

(2010) Karşılaştırmalı Perspektiften Türkiye’de Medya Sistemi. Mülkiye 34(269): 101–125.

Blumler

Katz

(1974) The Uses of Mass Communications: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Bozdağ

(2016) Türkiye’de Yeni Medya Kullanım Eğilimleri Araştırma Raporu. Kadir Has University. Available at: https://khas.edu.tr/tr/arastirma/khasta-arastirma/khas-arastirmalari/turkiyede-yeni-medya-kullanim-egilimleri-sonuclari (accessed 16 March 2017).

10.

Buckingham

(2000) The Making of Citizens. London: Routledge.

11.

Costera-Meijer

(2007) The paradox of popularity. Journalism Studies 8(1): 96–116.

12.

Corbett

(2016) The social consequences of Brexit for the UK and Europe euroscepticism, populism, nationalism, and societal division. International Journal of Social Quality 6(1): 11–31. DOI: 10.3167/IJSQ.2016.060102.

13.

Curran

Coen

Aalberg

, et al. (2013) Internet revolution revisited: a comparative study of online news. Media, Culture & Society 35(7): 880–897.

14.

Drok

Hermans

Kats

(2018) Decoding youth DNA: the relationship between social engagement and news interest, news media use and news preferences of Dutch Millenials. Journalism 19(5): 699–717.

15.

Elvestad

Phillips

(2018) Misunderstanding News Audiences: Seven Myths of the Social Media Era. New York, NY: Routledge.

16.

Fletcher

Kleis

(2018) Are people incidentally exposed to news on social media? A comparative analysis. New Media and Society 20(7): 2450–2468.

17.

Freedom House (2015) Freedom on the net: Turkey report. Available at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-net/2015 (accessed 22 October 2015).

18.

Freedom House (2016) Freedom on the net: Turkey report. Available at: https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-net/20156 (accessed 30 April 2016).

19.

Hallin

Mancini

(2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

20.

Henke

(1985) Perceptions and use of news media by college students. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 29(4): 431–436.

21.

Huang

(2009) The causes of youth’s low news consumption and strategies for making youths happy news consumers. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 15(1): 105–122.

22.

Iosifidis

(2016) Media ownership and concentration in the United Kingdom. In: Noam

(ed) Who Owns the World’s Media? Media Concentration and Ownership Around the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.425–445.

23.

Kalogeropoulos

(2019) How young people consume news and the implications of mainstream media. Available at: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2019/how-younger-generations-consume-news-differently/ (accessed 16 October 2019).

24.

Katz

Blumler

(eds) (1974) The Uses of Mass Communications: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.

25.

Kaya

Çakmur

(2010) Politics and the mass media in Turkey. Turkish Studies 11(4): 521–537.

26.

Konda (2019) Konda Medya Raporu. Available at: https://konda.com.tr/tr/rapor/konda-medya-raporu/ (accessed January 2020).

27.

Kurban

Sözeri

(2011) Case study report: does media policy promote media freedom and independence? The case of Turkey. Istanbul, Turkey: Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV). Available at: https://www.tesev.org.tr/en/research/case-study-report-does-media-policy-promote-media-freedom-and-independence-the-case-of-turkey/ (accessed July 2020).

28.

Lee

Carpini

(2010). News consumption revisited: examining the power of habits in the 21st century. In: Paper presented at 11th international symposium on online journalism, Austin, Texas, April 23–24.

29.

Livingstone

Markham

(2008) The contribution of media consumption to civic participation. British Journal of Sociology 59(2): 351–371.

30.

McQuail

(1983) Mass Communication Theory. London: Sage.

31.

McQuail

Blumler

Brown

(1972) The television audience: A revised perspective. In: McQuail

(ed.) Sociology of Mass Communications. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp.135–165.

32.

Media Reform Coalition (2019) Who owns the UK Media? Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre, Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies. Available at: https://mediareform.org.uk (accessed 16 October 2019).

33.

Mindich

DTZ

(2005) Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

34.

Mitchelstein

Boczkowski

(2010) Online news consumption research: an assessment of past work and an agenda for the future. New Media & Society 12(7): 1085–1102.

35.

Molyneux

(2018) Mobile news consumption: a habit of snacking. Digital Journalism 6(5): 634–650.

36.

Newman

Levy

DAL

(2013) Reuters institute digital news report 2013. Available at: http://media.digitalnewsreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Reuters-Institute-Digital-News-Report-2013.pdf (accessed 19 September 2015)

37.

Newman

NFR

Levy

DAL

Nielsen

(2016) Reuters institute digital news report 2016. Available at: http://media.digitalnewsreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Digital-News-Report-2016.pdf?x89475 (accessed 18 February 2017).

38.

Newman

Fletcher

Kalogeropoulos

, et al. (2017) Reuters institute digital news report 2017. Available at: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Digital%20News%20Report%202017%20web_0.pdf?utm_source=digitalnewsreport.org&utm_medium=referral (accessed 20 January 2018).

39.

Newman

Fletcher

Kalogeropoulos

, et al. (2018) Reuters institute digital news report 2018. Available at: http://media.digitalnewsreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/digital-news-report-2018.pdf (accessed 20 December 2018).

40.

Newman

Fletcher

Kalogeropoulos

, et al. (2019) Reuters institute digital news report 2019. Available at: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/inline-files/DNR_2019_FINAL.pdf (accessed 20 January 2020).

41.

Nielsen

Fletcher

Kalogeropoulos

, et al. (2020) Communications in the coronavirus crisis: lessons for the second wave. Available at: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/communications-coronavirus-crisis-lessons-second-wave (accessed 28 October 2020).

42.

Noam

(2016) Who Owns the World’s Media? Media Concentration and Ownership Around the World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

43.

Ofcom (2018) News consumption in the UK. Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/news-consumption-2018.pdf (accessed 28 October 2018).

44.

Reporters Without Borders (2016) RSF urges Turkey to rescind draconian state of emergency decrees. Available at: https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-urges-turkey-rescind-draconian-state-emergency-decrees (accessed 28 September 2016).

45.

Richard

Park

(2017) The impact of trust in the news media on online news consumption and participation. Digital Journalism 5(10): 1281–1299.

46.

Tandoc

Johnson

(2016) Most students get breaking news first from Twitter. Newspaper Research Journal 37(2): 153–166.

47.

Tewksbury

(2003) What do Americans really want to know? Tracking the behaviour of news readers on the internet. Journal of Communication 53(4): 694–710.

48.

Teyit.org (2019) Media usage and news consumption. Available at: https://teyit.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Media-Usage-and-News-Consumption_digital.pdf (accessed 25 October 2019).

49.

Tsfati

Ariely

(2014) Individual and contextual correlates of trust in media across 44 countries. Communication Research 41(6): 760–782.

50.

Tuik (2017) Hanehalkı Bilişim Teknolojileri Kullanım Araştırması. Report. Available at: www.tuik.org (accessed 30 April 2017).

51.

Tuik (2019) Hanehalkı Bilişim Teknolojileri Kullanım Araştırması. Available at: www.tuik.org (accessed 30 November 2019).

52.

Uce

De Swert

(2010) Introducing Turkey to the three media system models: the content of TV news in eleven countries. In: Dobek-Ostrowska

(ed.) Comparative Media Systems: European and Global Perspectives. Baltimore, MD: Central European University Press, pp.63–76.

53.

Van Cauwenberge

D’Haenes

Beentjes

(2013) Young people’s news orientations and uses of traditional and new media for news. Communications 38(4): 367–388.

54.

Yanardağoğlu

(2019) The media and media policy. In: Özerdem

Whiting

(eds) The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics. London: Routledge.

55.

Yanatma

(2018) Turkey. In: Newman

Fletcher

Kalogeropoulos

, et al. (eds) Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Available at: http://media.digitalnewsreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/digital-news-report-2018.pdf (accessed 20 January 2020).