Making senses of old and new media as news providers: Young people's (15-30 years old) perspectives and family contexts

Brites, M. (2010). Making senses of old and new media as news providers: Young people's (15-30 years old) perspectives and family contexts. ECREA 2010: "3rd European Communication Conference". 12-14 October.

Ecrea_MariaJoseBrites_Paper_595.pdf

Abstract: News media consumption among young people is still an issue that needs further attention, because of its contribution to their socialization, understanding of the world they live in and to the vitality of the media organizations. Audiences, nowadays are much more fragmented because they have access to a huge range of different media, from traditional to new media options. Young people select among these options in different ways and sometimes they don‟t show a direct relationship between being young, even teenager, and opt for the internet as a news source. Traditional media is still related to their lives, even in news consumption, but internet is an essential news media, especially among young adults. Several factors contribute to this state of affairs. The subject they choose to get informed about, the access they have to different media and also the personal and social ability they need to have to deal with new technologies. If traditional media require some skills to deal with them, digital media are even more demanding. These aspects, mainly the uses of different media and the relationship with this and the politic issues are some of the concerns of this paper. The study was based on the analysis of 49 semi-structured interviews1 with three different age groups of young people between 15 and 30 years old.