Decoding youth DNA: The relationship between social engagement and news interest,news media use and news preferences of Dutch millennials

Abstract

There is a growing concern in Western democracies about the decline in young people’s use of news media. Some scholars see it as a result of a diminishing interest in social issues and even of a more general deterioration in civic culture. Others claim that young people still feel socially engaged but that they turn their back to mainstream news media because they are increasingly irrelevant to them. This study focuses on the question how Dutch millennials’ social engagement relates to their news interest, their news media use and their news preferences. It concludes that the relation between young people’s social engagement and their news interest is still strong. Furthermore, it shows that social engagement is clearly related to the use of most national news media, including the use of Facebook. However, social engagement is not so much related to the use of most local/regional news media. Finally, findings show that social engagement is positively related to a citizen-oriented approach of news but not to a consumer-oriented approach. Overall, the study provides insights that can broaden our understanding of the complex relationship between news interest, news media use and news preferences of young people and their engagement with society. Next to that, it can help professional journalism to get (re)connected with the up-growing generation.

Keywords

News interest news media use news preferences social engagement young people

Introduction

The role of professional journalism in a democracy seems so evident that people often take it for granted (Christians et al., 2009: vii). Guaranteeing a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning (Hutchins, 1947) is a professional task that should not be left in the hands of the state, of the market or of amateurs. Yet, the profession that has to fulfil this important democratic task is going through a difficult phase, often referred to as a crisis in professional journalism. This crisis raises ‘major concerns for the quality of democratic life in the current media age’ (Boczkowski and Mitchelstein, 2017: 182; cf. Couldry and Hepp, 2017). It manifests itself through the decreasing time and money people are willing to spend on the products of professional journalism.

It is deepened by the fact that young people in particular, the so-called millennials, seem to turn their back on professional journalism. Curran et al. (2014: 884) conclude on the basis of a nine-country survey that 37 per cent of people from the age group 18–34 years ‘do not seek information, on a regular basis, from any news medium, compared with only 13 percent of those aged over 54-years-old’. For a long time, it has been assumed that young people develop a greater need for news once they grow older. Although this still appears to be the case, this age effect is increasingly counterbalanced by a cohort effect: News media use increases with age, but each new cohort starts at a lower level (Peiser, 2000).

There can be several reasons why young people might feel disconnected from news media.

In part of the literature, it is presumed to be caused by socio-cultural trends, such as an increasing orientation of youth towards popular culture (Fiske, 1989; Van Zoonen, 2004), a stronger focus on self-actualization instead of on civic duty (Bennett, 2008) or a diminishing sense of social engagement among young people in Western democracies (Skoric and Poor, 2013). Out of these explanations arises an image of a new generation that is less interested in formal and institutional politics, has less trust in public authority and is less active in social participation than earlier age cohorts (cf. Galston, 2004; Spannring et al., 2008), as a result of which most news is seen by them as boring and not relevant for their lives. From this perspective, young people might be won back by producing news that is more appropriate to the user’s interests and easier to digest.

However, the causes of a disconnect can also be found in a more or less opposite direction. A recent study of the Media Insight Project, ‘How Millennials Get News: Inside the Habits of America’s First Digital Generation’ (2015), found that ‘becoming an informed citizen’ is the most important reason millennials have for using news and information (p. 8). However, they experience a decreasing sense of being represented by the mainstream news media (Costera Meijer, 2007; Devlin, 2006; Wayne et al., 2008). From this perspective, the crisis in professional journalism could – at least in part – be the result of the incapacity to respond adequately to the evolving socio-cultural environment (Vogel, 2014; cf. Peters and Broersma, 2017) and more specifically to the changing nature and size of young people’s social engagement (cf. Papacharissi, 2009; Rosenberry and St. John, 2010). Many young people feel that news media are too focused on the institutional side of society (Associated Press, 2008) and do not sufficiently contribute to their awakening citizenship (Banaji and Buckingham, 2013; cf. Rosenberry and St. John, 2010). This aligns with the view of Blumler (2011: xv), who suggests that the crisis in journalism is partly ‘a crisis of civic adequacy, impoverishing the contributions of journalism to citizenship and democracy’. From this perspective, young people might be re-engaged by news that is citizen-oriented, that informs the public about possible solutions to public problems (cf. Gyldensted, 2015; Haagerup, 2014; Nichols et al., 2006) and considers a greater variety of viewpoints than only a bipolar pro and con (Drok and Hermans, 2016; Laufer, 2011).

In our study, we are particularly interested in the relation between young people’s social engagement and their need for professionally produced news. The relationship between social engagement and news media use has been studied in different ways. The research done by Putnam in 1995 can be seen as a starting point for a series of studies over the past two decades, showing that newspaper use is a good predictor for social engagement, political knowledge and social trust (e.g. Beaudoin, 2009; Gotlieb et al., 2015; Pasek et al., 2006). The effect of television use on social engagement is somewhat more complex: Positive as well as negative effects were found (e.g. Orlowski, 2007; Rosenstone and Hansen, 1993). The same goes for the use of the Internet (e.g. Jennings and Zeitner, 2003; Nie and Erbring, 2000). De Vreese and Boomgaarden (2006) state that research is ‘not conclusive about the relationship between various media and political knowledge and engagement variables’ (p. 320). In most of these studies, news media use is conceived as the independent variable and social engagement as the dependent one. The underlying idea is that the use of professional news media informs people about news, context and opinion, and the way this is done can either stimulate (Buckingham, 2000; Norris, 2000) or discourage (Capella and Jamieson, 1997; Putnam, 2000) social engagement. In this line of research, the focus on the effects of news media use is often stronger than on its determinants. However, the relationship between social engagement and news media use is in principle a two-way street: Not only can the use of news media encourage social engagement, but conversely a higher level of social engagement might also lead to a higher news interest and/or a higher level of news media use. Romer et al. (2009) looked into the different directions of influence and found that causality indeed runs both ways, although ‘the best fit indices were obtained for the model in which civic activity affected media use’ (p. 75).

Most of the aforementioned research was done before the final breakthrough of interactive, mobile Internet and the emergence of social media such as Facebook or Twitter. Despite the fact that these digital developments are often believed to be solely responsible for the decrease in young people’s use of traditional news media, the emergence of new devices and platforms does not sufficiently explain the so-called ‘tuning-out’ (Mindich, 2005). Several studies have found that the downward trend in news media use, especially with regard to newspapers, is a trend that started long before the breakthrough of interactive, mobile Internet (e.g. Buckingham, 2000; Barnhurst, 2013; Vogel, 2014). Nevertheless, it seems clear that the arrival of interactive and mobile Internet has accelerated the speed by which young people supplement or replace traditional news media by a whole range of new platforms (Erbsen et al., 2012; cf. Media Insight Project, 2014, 2015). These news media trigger news routines that differ considerably from older routines (Costera Meijer and Groot Kormelink, 2014): Regularly checking, snacking, sharing or liking news on social media for a few seconds is not like reading a printed newspaper once a day for, let’s say, 15 minutes. Therefore, mobile and online versions of traditional media, as well as stand-alone news sites and social media such as Facebook and Twitter, should be included in the research design.

Furthermore, most of the research on social engagement and news media use does not concentrate on young people specifically. The little exceptions to this rule are mostly qualitative studies that describe a picture of an up-growing generation which partially still feels connected to society and still is interested in news about socio-political topics. Yet, their social engagement does not automatically mean that they actually use traditional news media. In a study of ‘youth identity, the news media and the public sphere in South Africa’, Malila (2013) conclude on the basis of qualitative research that ‘young people’s interest in news is still indicative for their social engagement but does not impact on their actual news use’ (p. 25). Marchi (2012) did a qualitative study among a group of 61 American high school students. Her research shows the presence of ‘engaged youth’. Although this group of young people is interested in news, they qualify mainstream news media in a negative way, using qualifications such as boring and irrelevant, not worth our trust.

One could conclude that professional journalism is in deep trouble when even young people who do feel connected to society turn away from news media. In this article, the relationship between social engagement and the need for professional news is explored in a quantitative way, specifically focusing on the generation that was born in the 1990s and grew up with the Internet. We first want to establish whether or not the level of social engagement of this specific group is still related to their news interest. The second issue is whether or not young people’s social engagement is still related to their actual news media use, including new platforms as Facebook and Twitter. And finally, in order to get more insight into how journalism could adjust and re-connect with the up-growing generation, the focus will change to the issue of whether or not the level of social engagement of millennials is connected to preferences regarding the way news is approached by professional journalism. More specifically, we are interested in the connection between young people’s social engagement and their preference for consumer-oriented news, citizen-oriented news or both.

This has led to the following research questions that tap into the current discussions within the field of journalism studies about the future of professional journalism and the supposed gap between news media and the young public (cf. Peters and Broersma, 2017):

RQ1. How is young people’s social engagement related to their news interest (1a) and to what extent do young people with a relatively high social engagement differ from those with a relatively low social engagement (1b)?

RQ2. How is young people’s social engagement related to their news media use (2a) and to what extent do young people with a relatively high social engagement differ from those with a relatively low social engagement (2b)?

RQ3. How is young people’s social engagement related to their news preferences (3a) and to what extent do young people with a relatively high social engagement differ from those with a relatively low social engagement (3b)?

Research method

This study is part of our broader research project called ‘Young people, news media use and participation’.¹ Sampling and fieldwork were carried out by the Dutch research agency TNS/NIPO. Data were collected in the second half of 2014, using a quantitative online survey. Outcomes were weighted for age, gender, educational level and region on the basis of the national data of the Central Bureau of Statistics (The Netherlands). With a coefficient of 0.97, the sample is these variables are representative. In this study, respondents in the age group of 15–24 years were selected (N = 940). This can be seen as the life phase in which most of people’s news consumption routines are established (Costera Meijer, 2007; cf. Marchi, 2012).

The background characteristics of the sample are as follows – age: M = 19.8 years; gender: 55 per cent male, 45 per cent female; level of education: 14 per cent low, 43 per cent mid-low, 18 per cent mid-high and 25 per cent high.

Measurements

Social engagement

The concept of social engagement is defined and operationalized in various ways in the literature (see, for instance, Beaudoin, 2009; Coleman, 1988; Curran et al., 2014; Halpern, 2005; Krasny et al., 2013; Putnam, 1995; Romer et al., 2009). Three central elements can be distilled from these definitions: (a) political engagement, (b) social trust and (c) associational involvement. In this study, social engagement is measured with 11 items based on these three central elements. Youths were asked (a. political engagement) whether they would have the intention to vote in municipal (1), national (2) and European (3) elections; (b. social trust) whether they feel a bond with their neighbourhood (4), their place of residence (5) and/or Dutch society (6); whether people can be trusted in general (7); whether it is important to have contacts with people from other cultures (8); and (c. associational involvement) whether it is important to be a member of an organized interest group (9), a leisure-time organization (10) and/or a philosophical-religious (11) organization. A 5-point scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree was used. These items constitute a reliable scale for social engagement (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.745). The social engagement scale shows a more or less normal distribution (N = 940, M = 3.12, standard deviation (SD) = 0.54; Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Scores of 15- to 24-year-olds on the social engagement scale (N = 940).

News interest

News interest was measured in two ways:

Self-reported general interest in news, 10-point scale (M = 6.48, SD = 1.926);

Self-reported interest in news measured by five items referring to the vicinity of the news: neighbourhood or district news (M = 2.89, SD = 0.993), city or village news (M = 3.02, SD = 0.954), regional news (M = 2.81, SD = 0.943), national news (M = 3.03, SD = 0.972) and international news (M = 2.90, SD = 1.019). Interest is measured with a 5-point scale ranging from (1) not at all interested to (5) very strongly interested.

News media use

News media use has several dimensions, and in our broader research project, it is measured in various ways, such as usage frequency, usage intensity, functional usage and interactivity (Drok and Kats, 2017). This study focuses on usage frequency of a wide range of 18 media types: printed, audio, visual, online and mobile, divided into three categories – national news media, regional/local news media and social media (see Tables 3 to 5). Usage frequency was measured with a 4-point scale: (1) rarely or never, (2) sometimes (1–2× a week), (3) regularly (3–4× a week) and (4) (almost) every day (5–7× a week, including more than once a day).

News preferences

News preferences were measured with 12 statements expressing opinions about what respondents want from the news, using a 5-point scale: (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. A factor analysis (eigenvalue >1; Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) = 0.838) was used to determine the structure within the items. The outcomes show two dimensions that together explain nearly half (46.8%) of the total variance (Table 1). The first dimension refers to a preference for news that is more appropriate to young people’s interests and easier to digest. This dimension can be labelled as consumer-oriented approach (reliability of scale Cronbach’s alpha = 0.754; M = 2.96; SD = 0.58). The second dimension refers to a preference for news that provides more diversity in perspectives, more background information and is more oriented towards solutions to societal problems. This dimension can be labelled as citizen-oriented approach (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.734; M = 3.20; SD = 0.52).

Table 1.

Factor solution: news preferences.

	1Consumer-oriented	2Citizen-oriented	Communality
News items (text and video) should be shorter	0.733		0.537
Language used should be simpler	0.695		0.501
Most of the news is boring	0.680		0.499
News content should be more appropriate to my interests	0.669		0.488
There should be more news items about people my age	0.614		0.502
News is too negative, the tenor of news items should be more positive	0.502		0.307
News should provide more in-depth information		0.726	0.545
News should include more diverse sources and perspectives		0.705	0.498
News content should contribute to the solution of social problems		0.640	0.429
News should more often be reported from the perspective of the people involved		0.637	0.485
News should more often be explained		0.547	0.418
People themselves should be able to contribute more to the news		0.502	0.402
Eigenvalues	3.791	1.822
Explained variance (%)	31.6	15.2

Extraction method: principal component analysis. Rotation method: varimax (three iterations). Factor loadings <0.400 are not reported.

Analysis process

To measure the relation between social engagement and news interest (RQ1a), news media use (RQ2a) and news preferences (RQ3a) Pearson’s correlation was used (p < 0.001, two-tailed).

For further analysis, the respondents were divided into three groups of virtually the same size, based on their score on the social engagement scale: low (N = 319, M = 2.53, SD = 0.35), middle (N = 281, M = 3.13, SD = 0.10) and high (N = 340, M = 3.66, SD = 0.27). The high and low social engagement groups were compared for their news interest (RQ1b), their news use (RQ2b) and their news preferences (RQ3b). Differences between the two groups were calculated with the chi-square test (p < 0.001). For RQ3b, mean scores were calculated for the two factors – consumer- and citizen-oriented approach – for further analyses. A t-test was used to compare the groups (p < 0.001).

Results

News interest

The first step in the analysis (RQ1a) was to establish the relationship between social engagement and general news interest. Findings show a clear relation between social engagement and general news interest among young people (Pearson’s r = 0.404; p < 0.001 level, two-sided).

Comparison of the high- and low-engagement groups (RQ1b) shows significant differences in their news interest. In the high-engagement group, 12 per cent of the respondents report an interest below 6, whereas in the low-engagement group, this is 39 per cent. The high-engagement group has a mean news interest score of 7.17, while the low-engagement group has a mean score of 5.69 (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

General news interest by level of engagement (low versus high).

There is also a strong relationship between social engagement and the interest in news defined in terms of vicinity, from neighbourhood news to global news (Table 2; RQ1a).

Table 2.

Social engagement and news interest (vicinity): relationship (RQ1a) and high versus low (RQ1b).

To what extent are you interested in the following types of news?	RQ1a	RQ1b
	Pearson’s r	% (very) strongly interested		Chi-square (df 4)
	Pearson’s r	High (n = 340)	Low (n = 319)
News about your own city or village	0.362*	45	18	84.08*
National news	0.408*	45	16	106.85*
News about your own neighbourhood or district	0.283*	37	17	46.22*
International news	0.363*	37	14	97.27*
News about your own region	0.345*	31	11	80.41*

p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

Comparison of the high- and low-engagement groups (Table 2; RQ1b) shows similarities as well as differences. In both groups, the ranking of the news interest in terms of vicinity (nearby or far away) is almost the same, with local news as the category they are the most interested in and regional news as the category they are the least interested in. The degree of interest between the two groups differs considerably: Among the high-engagement group, the percentage of respondents stating that they are (very) strongly interested is two to three times higher than among the low-engagement group; interest of the high-engagement group ranges from 31 to 45 per cent claiming (very) strong interest; the range of the low-engagement group is 11–18 per cent (Table 2; RQ1b).

News media use

Findings show a positive relationship between the degree of social engagement and the use of all national news media (p < 0.001; Table 3; RQ2a).

Table 3.

Social engagement and national news media use: relationship (RQ2a) and high versus low (RQ2b).

How often do you read, watch or listen to news using the news media listed below?National media	RQ2a	RQ2b
	Pearson’s r	% (3) regular and (4) (almost) daily news use		Chi-square (df 4)
	Pearson’s r	High (n = 340)	Low (n = 319)
National television (live or taped)	0.261*	73	50	41.74*
National radio	0.215*	51	29	52.24*
Website of national broadcaster	0.184*	43	25	35.00*
National broadcaster on mobile device	0.192*	40	21	30.59*
Printed national newspaper	0.228*	25	8	51.42*
Website of national newspaper	0.133*	33	23	ns
National newspaper on mobile device	0.139*	29	17	ns
Free newspaper	0.170*	25	13	25.72*
News aggregators	0.226*	59	37	44.48*

ns: not significant.

p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

In both groups (high and low), national television is the most frequently used news medium: 73 per cent of the high-engagement group use national television at least regularly (three to four times a week); in the low-engagement group, this is 50 per cent. News aggregators (e.g. Google News) are also popular in both groups, but the difference between the two groups is – again – considerable: high 59 per cent versus low 37 per cent. In both groups, printed newspapers are the least frequently used national news media, with again a marked difference between the two groups: high 25 per cent versus low 8 per cent for printed national newspapers; high 25 per cent versus low 13 per cent for free newspapers. For most national news media, differences in news media use between both groups are significant, with the exception of the two digital platforms (website and/or mobile app) of national newspapers (Table 3; RQ2b).

With regard to the relation between social engagement and the use of regional/local news media, findings show a mixed pattern. Regional/local television and regional newspapers (printed, website) show a positive relation, whereas other regional/local news media do not show a significant relation (Table 4; RQ2a).

Table 4.

Social engagement and local/regional news media use: relationship (RQ2a) and high versus low (RQ2b).

How often do you read, watch or listen to news using the news media listed below?Regional/local media	RQ2a	RQ2b
	Pearson’s r	% (3) regular and (4) (almost) daily news use		Chi-square (df 4)
	Pearson’s r	High (n = 340)	Low (n = 319)
Regional/local television (live or taped)	0.127*	19	9	ns
Regional/local radio	ns	19	9	ns
Website of regional/local broadcaster	ns	14	9	ns
Regional broadcaster on mobile device	ns	16	9	ns
Printed regional/local newspaper	0.215*	18	7	46.07*
Website of regional/local newspaper	0.132*	15	10	19.40*
Regional/local newspaper on mobile device	ns	15	8	ns

ns: not significant.

p < .001 (two-tailed).

Compared to the national news media, regional/local media are not very frequently used by young people: On average, these media are used for news on a regular basis by less than 15 per cent of the respondents. The differences between the various types of news media appear to be rather small: Within the high-engagement group, percentages range from 14 to 19 per cent; within the low-engagement group, they range from 7 to 10 per cent.

All regional/local news media are more frequently used by respondents from the high-engagement group, but in most cases differences with the low-engagement group are not significant, with the exception of the printed newspapers and their website versions (Table 4; RQ2b).

Concerning the use of social media, findings show a positive relation between social engagement and the use of Facebook, but not between social engagement and the use of Twitter (Table 5; RQ2a). Of all news media (national, regional/local, social), Facebook ranks second with regard to the frequency of use, immediately after national television. This counts for the high-engagement group (70% use it regularly/daily for news) as well as for the low-engagement group (49% use it regularly/daily for news). The difference in Facebook use between the two groups is significant, but the difference in Twitter use is not (high: 37%, low: 27%; Table 5; RQ2b). This difference between the two included social media platforms is intriguing. Perhaps Facebook is more suitable for communication and exchange, whereas Twitter is more a one-way medium, with features that are ‘compatible with established breaking news practices’ (Ekdale et al., 2015: 6).

Table 5.

Social engagement and social media use: relationship (RQ2a) and high versus low (RQ2b).

How often do you read, watch or listen to news using the news media listed below?Social media	RQ2a	RQ2b
	Pearson’s r	% (3) regular and (4) (almost) daily news use		Chi-square (df 4)
	Pearson’s r	High (n = 340)	Low (n = 319)
Facebook	0.219*	70	49	35.18*
Twitter	ns	37	27	ns

ns: not significant.

p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

News approach

Findings show that social engagement is not significantly related to the consumer-oriented news preference items, with one major exception: it has a strong negative relation with the statement that ‘most of the news is boring’. Conversely, findings show that social engagement is positively related to all the citizen-oriented news preference items (Table 6; RQ3a).

Table 6.

Social engagement and news preferences: relationship (RQ3a) and high versus low (RQ3b).

To what extent do you agree with the following statements about news?	RQ3a	RQ3b
	Pearson’s r	% (strongly) agree		Chi-square (df 4)
	Pearson’s r	High (n = 340)	Low (n = 319)	Chi-square (df 4)
Consumer-oriented
News content should be more appropriate to my interests	ns	22	31	(25.32)*
There should be more news items about people my age	ns	32	29	ns
Most of the news is boring	(0.266)*	17	36	(45.22)*
News is too negative, the tenor of news items should be more positive	ns	40	36	ns
News items (text and video) should be shorter	ns	16	21	ns
Language used should be simpler	ns	31	27	ns
Citizen-oriented
News should include more diverse sources and perspectives	0.209*	59	38	38.21*
News should more often be reported from the perspective of the people involved	0.171*	34	19	29.64*
People themselves should be able to contribute more to the news	0.139*	27	19	ns
News should more often be explained	0.130*	39	28	ns
News content should contribute to the solution of social problems	0.147*	41	28	20.37*
News should provide more in-depth information	0.197*	37	25	23.92*

ns: not significant; (..): negative relation.

p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

Comparing the preferences of the high and low engaged respondents with regard to news preferences, findings show that for almost all statements respondents from the high-engagement group agree more on the statements than those from the low-engagement group, but only four differences are significant. ‘News should include more diverse sources and perspectives’ (agreement: high 59%, low 38%), ‘News should be reported more often from the perspective of the people involved’ (agreement: high 35%, low 19%), ‘News should contribute to the solution of social problems’ (agreement: high 41%, low 28%) and ‘News should provide more in-depth information’ (agreement: high 37%, low 25%). Conversely, there are two statements where the respondents from the low-engagement group score significantly higher than those from the high-engagement group: ‘Most of the news is boring’ (agreement: high 17%, low 36%) and ‘News content should be more appropriate to my interests’ (agreement: high 22%, low 31%) (Table 6; RQ3b).

Taking the analysis from the item level to the scale level, we were interested in finding out whether or not the level of social engagement would correlate with one or with both the news approaches. It turns out that there is a correlation with both the scales: a negative one with the consumer-oriented scale and a significant positive one with the citizen-oriented scale. This indicates that the more young people feel socially engaged, the stronger their preference is for a citizen-oriented approach of news by professional journalists (Table 7; RQ3a).

Table 7.

Correlation social engagement – consumer/citizen-oriented approaches.

	Consumer-oriented	Citizen-oriented
Social engagement (N = 940)	−0.101	0.253*

Pearson’s correlation.

p < 0.001 level (two-tailed).

Comparing the news preferences of the low- and high-engagement groups, findings show that the preference for the citizen-oriented approach is significantly stronger in the high-engagement group than it is in the low-engagement group (t(657) = 6.113, p < 0.001). No significant difference is found for the consumer-oriented approach (t(657) = 2.233, p > 0.001); both groups show more or less the same preference for this news approach (Table 8; RQ3b).

Table 8.

Mean scores on news approaches comparing the high- and low-engagement groups.

	High	Low	t
Consumer-oriented	2.92	3.02	ns
Citizen-oriented	3.28	3.03	6.113*

ns: not significant.

p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

Finally, social engagement is positively related to age (Pearson’s r = 0.139, p < 0.001) and educational level (Pearson’s r = 0.131, p < 0.001), but not to gender. Furthermore, regression analysis shows that social engagement has a considerable stronger influence on news interest than age, educational level or gender (see Appendix 1).

Conclusion and discussion

This article explores the complex relationship between the degree of social engagement and aspects of news interest, news media use and news preferences of young people who were born between 1990 and 2000 and raised in the interactive Internet era. Researching this relationship has become more complicated over recent years. In contemporary society, with its infrastructure based on information technology and its postmodern culture, it is getting more difficult to operationalize central concepts. These have become, so to speak, constantly moving targets. That also counts for the central concepts of this study. First, ‘social engagement’ can be expressed in more diverse ways than the classical voting or voluntary work, specifically online. Young people are believed to be developing a new biography of citizenship (cf. Gotlieb et al., 2015), which is characterized by a ‘higher sense of individual purpose, loose networks of community action (… and) more personally defined acts instead of voting as the core democratic art’ (Bennett, 2008: 14). On the contrary, recent studies argue that the differences between the old and the new must not be overestimated. As many authors recently have shown (e.g. Banaji and Buckingham, 2013; Hooghe and Oser, 2015), ‘new’ forms of engagement are still thin and do – in their consequences – not differ significantly from the more common and general forms of engagement. Research shows that traditional forms of good citizenship have not lost their importance among adolescents: ‘more traditional and institutionalized acts of citizenship, like voting, are still considered as important and will not be easily replaced in the near future’ (Hooghe and Oser, 2015: 46). Furthermore, news media very rarely motivate people to become involved with who are not already socially engaged: ‘the kinds of people who are active online are generally the same as the kinds of people who are active offline; they mostly do the same kind of things online as they do offline’ (Banaji and Buckingham, 2013: 11). Therefore, we chose to use one robust index, based on proven ways to measure social engagement attitudes, instead of differentiating between common forms of participation and more recent, emerging ones. We included three differing elements that can be found in the various ways in which social engagement is operationalized in the academic literature: (a) political engagement, (b) social trust and (c) associational involvement. Nevertheless, it might prove necessary to broaden the scope in future research.

Second, it is more difficult to unambiguously define ‘news media use’. The media landscape is changing fast. The use of professional news media is supplemented, or replaced, by an ongoing stream of news media, which are often difficult to compare regarding the frequency and intensity of their use and to the functions they are used for. Young people tend not to use news in discrete sessions or by going directly to a professional news provider, but they are more likely to connect to the world in a general way, which ‘mixes news with social connection, problem solving, social action and entertainment’ (Media Insight Project, 2015: 1). These issues are not easy to resolve. We have tried to overcome this problem by taking into account a broad array of news media, including all types of traditional news media as well as online, mobile and social media. Ultimately, our main concern is the future role of professional journalism in democracy, and we have therefore included the platforms that – at this moment in time – are predominantly used by professional news media.

Even the concept ‘young people’ is not unambiguous. Although they share a common period of birth (‘millennials’), they differ in many respects, just like older people. Young people differ regarding the level of their social engagement, the level of their news interest, their news media use and their news preferences. To do justice to the complexities of news interest and news media use of young people, it is important to avoid generalized, qualifying claims (cf. Banaji and Buckingham, 2013: 13). This does not mean, however, that it is impossible to find patterns in their views or behaviour. First, our study shows that young people differ considerably with respect to the extent to which they feel socially engaged. The generalized idea that young people in Western democracies are hardly socially involved (cf. Skoric and Poor, 2013) or – conversely – show many signs of engagement (cf. Marchi, 2012) should therefore be refined: Some feel engaged, others do not. Second, our study shows that millennials still display a rather firm relationship between social engagement and news interest. This outcome confirms the idea that young people’s social engagement and their interest in news are still positively related (Malila, 2013: 25; cf. Costera Meijer, 2007). Third, the idea that socially engaged young people – despite their relatively high interest in news – are turning away from professional news media (cf. Marchi, 2012) deserves some nuancing. We found no general ‘tuning-out’ (Mindich, 2005) among young people with a strong social engagement. The idea that ‘social engagement does not impact on young people’s actual news use’ (cf. Malila, 2013) is therefore not fully confirmed by our study. Generally speaking, social engagement does have a significant positive relationship with the use of most national news media, but this is not true for the use of local/regional news media.

This result is striking because young people, especially from the high-engagement group, indicate that they are definitely interested in local news. Unlike the case of the interest in national news, this local news interest is not translated into frequent use of the corresponding news media that provide local/regional news. A possible explanation could be that many of these media have limited their main focus to older target groups and do not reach out to the younger generation. Probably, a more consumer-oriented approach could increase young people’s use of the local/regional news media. Next to that, these news media could focus more on finding ways to respond properly to the relatively strong preference for citizen-oriented news that the high-engagement group displays in our study. Life may be global, but living is local. Christians et al. have argued that ‘[t]he more intense the community attachment, the more likely are the media to be active participants, as well as partisan, since this is what audiences want and expect’ (2009: 128). Recent research has shown that features such as focus on the citizens’ agenda and focus on solution-oriented news are still rare in the daily routine of Dutch regional news rooms (Hermans et al., 2014). This implies that the connection between regional/local news media and socially engaged young people can probably be strengthened by adopting a more inclusive and constructive journalistic approach (cf. Drok and Hermans, 2016). It might help improve the ‘civic adequacy’ (Blumler, 2011) of professional journalism, where it is most needed: in the regional/local context.

Obviously, this study has its limitations. The survey methodology always carries the risk of a social desirability bias and an incorrect self-assessment of the respondents’ actual behaviour. This problem has been reduced by focusing on comparing groups and drawing conclusions on the basis of relative scores, instead of on the basis of absolute ones. A second limitation is that to measure the political element of social engagement, young people who are not yet eligible to vote were asked about their political habits (especially voting), which could lead to a bias in the answers. We have tried to overcome this by not asking about the actual act of voting but about the future voting intention (cf. Gotlieb et al., 2015). In a separate analysis, we have compared the 18-minus with the 18-plus group: The questions about voting did not show a different pattern than the questions on the other variables.

The third limitation is that the study has been done in a Dutch context, which – like any other context – has specific characteristics, such as the relatively dense structure of social association in the Netherlands or the strong tradition in newspaper readership. However, the underlying issues and relations are recognized in many countries, as the international literature shows. Despite these limitations, this study provides some valuable insights for a better understanding of how the social engagement of young people relates to their news interest, their news media use and their news preferences. This can be important input for thinking about the future of journalism in general and of local/regional journalism in particular. Unlike people’s age, gender or level of education, the level of their social engagement can to some degree be influenced by journalists themselves (Rosen, 1999; Rosenberry and St. John, 2010). Taking the citizen’s agenda and interests as a starting point, using civic sources, approaching citizens as potential social actors and not just as a ‘vox pop’ or choosing solution-oriented news frames can make a positive contribution to people’s social engagement and participation (Haas, 2007; Nichols et al., 2006). Adopting a more citizen-oriented approach could not only be beneficial to the socio-democratic role of professional journalism, but it might also contribute to the viability of professional journalism itself.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix 1.

Regression model: Influence of social engagement on news interest.

	b	Beta
Intercept	−0.227
Engagement	1.275**	0.364
Level of education	0.092*	0.080
Age	0.087**	0.130
Female	−0.134	−0.035
F	52.453
r ²	18.9%
N	905

p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biographies

Nico Drok is a Professor of Media and Civil Society at the Media Research Centre of Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle, The Netherlands. His research focuses on civic journalism, normative professionalism and news media use and news preferences of young people in relation to the level of their social engagement. He is President of the European Journalism Training Association.

Liesbeth Hermans is Professor of Constructive Journalism at the Media Research Centre of Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on the impact of constructive forms of journalism on news users and on society as a whole, on the use of constructive journalism in the context of regional news media and on role orientations of professional journalists. She is the Dutch partner in the Worlds of Journalism Study.

Karijn Kats has been working as a researcher at the Media Research Centre of Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle, The Netherlands. She is now an independent entrepreneur.

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