YOUTH AND NEWS IN A DIGITAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT • IN A DIGITAL AND NEWS YOUTH Ongoing digitalization has fundamentally transformed the entire media landscape, not least the domain of news. The blurring of previously sharp distinctions between production, distribution and consumption have challenged the established news industry and brought into question long-held assumptions of what journalism is or should be, who is a journalist and how we define, consume and use “news”. This ant- hology aims to shed light on the implications of these transformations for young pe- ople in the Nordic and Baltic countries. It focuses on three themes: youth participating in news and information production; news production by established media organiza- tions and novel information providers aimed at children and youth; news use among youth. Taken together, the chapters illustrate the complexity of news use among youth and offer some rather different examples of strategies that news organizations might consider for reaching young people with news – or involving them in the production of news. Furthermore, the book might serve as a basis for reflecting on the urgent, but Perspectives Nordic-Baltic cumbersome, area of media and information literacy in these media saturated times. Youth and News in a Digital Media Environment consists of contributions from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Estonia, written by scholars and people working in the media industry. The target audience of this book is students, professionals and • Yvonne Andersson, Ulf Dalquist & Jonas Ohlsson (eds.) Andersson, Yvonne researchers working in the field of journalism, media and communication studies, YOUTH AND NEWS children and youth studies, media and information literacy and digital civic litera- cy. The book is edited by Yvonne Andersson and Ulf Dalquist at the Swedish Media Council and Jonas Ohlsson at Nordicom. It has been funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. IN A DIGITAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT University of Gothenburg Box 713, SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden Nordic-Baltic Perspectives Telephone +46 31 786 00 00 • Fax + 46 31 786 46 55 > E-mail [email protected] NORDICOM NORDICOM www.nordicom.gu.se 855022 Yvonne Andersson, Ulf Dalquist & Jonas Ohlsson (eds.) 789188 ISBN 978-91-88855-02-2 9 YOUTH AND NEWS IN A DIGITAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT YOUTH AND NEWS IN A DIGITAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT Nordic-Baltic Perspectives Yvonne Andersson, Ulf Dalquist & Jonas Ohlsson (eds.) NORDICOM Youth and News in a Digital Media Environment Nordic-Baltic Perspectives Yvonne Andersson, Ulf Dalquist & Jonas Ohlsson (eds.) © Editorial matters and selections, the editors; articles, individual contributors; Nordicom 2018. ISBN 978-91-88855-02-2 (print) ISBN 978-91-88855-03-9 (pdf) The publication is also available as open access at www.nordicom.gu.se Published by: Nordicom University of Gothenburg Box 713 SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG Sweden Images reprinted with permission from copyrightholder Cover photo: Yoshiyuki Hasegawa / Millennium / TT / NTB Scanpix Cover by: Per Nilsson Printed by: Exacta Print, Borås, Sweden, 2018 Content Preface 7 1. Youth and news in a digital media environment Nordic-Baltic Perspectives Yvonne Andersson, Ulf Dalquist & Jonas Ohlsson 9 PART I. YOUTH PARTICIPATING IN NEWS AND INFORMATION PRODUCTION 2. The News Evaluator. Evidence-based innovations to promote digital civic literacy Thomas Nygren & Fredrik Brounéus 19 3. Faktuell. Youths as journalists in online newspapers and magazines in Norway Vedat Sevincer, Heidi Biseth & Robert Wallace Vaagan 29 4. Non-formal media education. A rich border area of learning Kadri Ugur & Eleri Lõhmus 39 PART II. NEWS PRODUCTION CONDUCTED BY MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS 5. Lilla Aktuellt. Public service producing news for young people Lowe Östberg 51 6. Chatbots as a new user interface for providing health information to young people Marita Bjaaland Skjuve & Petter Bae Brandtzæg 59 7. Voicing young people’s perspectives. Media influencing as a form of collaboration between youth organisations and the professional media Maarit Jaakkola 67 8. Printing children’s news. Three editors’ views on newspapers for a young audience Catharina Bucht 79 PART III. NEWS USE AMONG YOUTH 9. Youth news media use in Estonia Signe Opermann 91 10. Young people do consume news in social media – with a little help from their friends! Maria Jervelycke Belfrage 105 11. News consumption among young people in Norway. The relevance of smartphones and social media Dag Slettemeås & Ardis Storm-Mathisen 115 12. News kids can use – to play with Stine Liv Johansen 125 13. The taste for news. Class shaping young people’s news use in Sweden Johan Lindell 133 14. A generation divided. (Dis)engagement towards news among Danish youth Jacob Ørmen 141 15. To share or not to share? News practices in the media life of Swedish youths Yvonne Andersson 149 Preface Ongoing digitalization has fundamentally transformed the entire me- dia landscape, not least the domain of news. This anthology aims to elucidate the implications of these transformations for young people in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Youth and News in a Digital Media Environment consists of contribu- tions from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Estonia, written by scholars as well as media industry professionals. We – the editors – want to thank all the contributing authors for making this book possible. We hope that it will serve as a source of inspiration for the media industry and media authorities alike when it comes to providing relevant and attractive news services to young people in our region. The book is the result of a collaboration between the Swedish Media Council and Nordicom. It has been funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. We are grateful for this support. Stockholm and Gothenburg, October 2018 The Editors 7 1. Youth and news in a digital media environment Nordic-Baltic perspectives Yvonne Andersson, Ulf Dalquist & Jonas Ohlsson Considering that the ongoing digitization of the past couple of decades has fundamentally transformed the entire media landscape, it might be a truism to claim that the domain of news also has undergone sig- nificant change. Not least the blurring of previously sharp distinctions between production, distribution and consumption have challenged the established news industry and brought into question long-held assumptions of what journalism is or should be, who is a journalist and what authority this third (or fourth) estate has in the early 21st century – and in the future. When news dissemination moves online, it has several crucial con- sequences. It is detached from the needs of large distribution networks for printing, distribution to subscribers and resellers, broadcasting frequencies, etc. Therefore, it is much cheaper than the distribution of traditional mass media. It might be instant: News production has always been a “stop-watch-culture” but online news distribution increases the pace even more.1 The distribution of news online is, potentially, worldwide. News also becomes subject to further dissemination by news users through sharing, liking, re-tweeting etc. in various social Yvonne Andersson is a researcher at the media channels. Traditional distinctions between production and Swedish Media Council. Ulf Dalquist is head of research and analy- consumption of news are no longer viable when people are, with Axel sis at the Swedish Media Council. Bruns’ terminology, produsing (producing and using) news.2 With the Jonas Ohlsson is an associate professor and the director of Nordicom at the advent of digital media technology and social media networks, the University of Gothenburg. 9 Yvonne Andersson, Ulf Dalquist & Jonas Ohlsson former users (or audiences) might as well produce and distribute their own content, “user-generated content”, and contribute with important journalistic work. This phenomenon has been studied and discussed among media scholars as citizen journalism, participatory journalism, grassroot journalism or connective journalism, indicating that the very notion of journalism is under consideration or scrutinization.3 In other words, the technological changes have large-scale conse- quences for the mode of news production. News production has become increasingly decentralised, and a plethora of new, “alternative” news sources have appeared. The vast amount of free news in social media, ad-funded-news aggregator sites, agenda-driven “news” sites etc. have, in addition to dwindling advertising in legacy media, led to a deep crisis for the traditional news media business model. It is still too early to tell if attempts to combat the loss of revenue by introducing pay-walls or cutting costs by downsizing staff may prove successful or contribute to the downward spiral of legacy news media. We can be quite certain, how- ever, that the days of traditional news media as we know it are counted. Because of this development, the notion of news itself – as well as the notion of journalism – have been problematised. The news media industry of the 20th century used to produce a rather easily identified product – news – with a distinct format, distributed through desig- nated channels, almost a genre in itself. Today, news can appear in any form, in any context, anywhere. The growth of native advertising, where it, although admittedly sometimes (inadequately) labelled as “paid content,” is presented as objective news reporting is one example. The continuous flow of information in social media, where personal messages, advertising and news items are intermingled is another. The push notice function in digital devices is a third; you don’t even have to look for news – the news comes looking for you. The reported rise of “fake news”, made-up or manipulated information camouflaged as news items for commercial or ideological reasons, is a fourth. So, how do we define news? Is it possible that young people define “news” differently than those who are older? These recent developments have given rise to several contradictory statements about the state of the news consumer, and most concern is expressed over news use among children and youth. On the one hand, they are portrayed as naive and gullible; on the other, as tech-savvy 10 1.