The “Year of the News 2024” project, part of the #UseTheNews initiative, aims to reach young people with a range of journalistic content and activities and get them involved in journalism. Leonie Wunderlich and Dr. Sascha Hölig researched how young people engage with the campaign and these activities. They conducted six online surveys between April and September and focus groups with young people between May and October.
The findings can be downloaded here as a working paper of the Hans-Bredow-Institut (no. 74).
Some Findings of the Scientific Research Accompanying the “Year of the News 2024”
The content of the Social News Daily editorial team (SND) and the “Year of the News” were rated positively by the participants and were particularly rated as interesting, informative, exciting and entertaining.
Over the course of the year, a loss of trust in the political reporting on certain topics becomes apparent among the respondents, which is less related to a general loss of trust and relevance of journalism, but rather to a dissatisfaction with the reporting on individual topics. For example, from the perspective of the respondents in all survey waves, the Palestinian perspective on the war in Gaza was given too little consideration in media reporting. Due to the small number of cases and the small proportion of people who actually had contact with content from the “Year of the News”, these findings must be interpreted with caution and cannot be generalized.
The activities in the “Year of the News 2024”, in particular those of the SND editorial team, were designed to (re)inspire this subgroup to take an interest in journalism. To do this, new approaches were to be taken to establish a more profound connection to the reality of young people’s lives and to open up new perspectives. These starting points were implemented by the way of addressing the people, the preparation of the content and the selection of topics.
When it comes to future journalistic content aimed at reaching young people, it seems advisable to present messages in a way that is easy to understand – this means explaining foreign and technical terms, using simple language and providing background information on complex topics. In addition, content should be designed to be as appealing as possible, i.e. above all, visually, concisely and comprehensibly.
Wunderlich, Leonie; Hölig, Sascha (2024): „Ich habe einen anderen Blickwinkel dazu bekommen“ – Erfahrungen von Schülerinnen und Schülern mit Praxisaktionen im „Jahr der Nachricht 2024“ [“I Got a Different Perspective on It” – Experiences of Students with Hands-On Actions in the “Year of the Message 2024”]. Hamburg: Verlag Hans-Bredow-Institut, December 2024 (Working Papers of the Hans-Bredow-Institut | Project Results No. 74), https://doi.org/10.21241/ssoar.98521.