Reimagining TV News for the Visual Generation: An Experimental Case Study in Visual Storytelling,Narrative Strategies,and Youth Engagement

Abstract

This article examines how television news can be redesigned to engage the “Visual Generation” aged 18–25, who mostly encounter news in mobile feeds rather than scheduled broadcasts. It draws on a university-based “live lab” project in which journalism students produced A/B versions of environmental TV stories that were then discussed in eight focus groups with 64 young viewers. We ask which audiovisual formats and storytelling techniques they find most engaging, how they perceive constructive or solutions-oriented elements, and which pedagogical arrangements best prepare students to design such formats. Findings show that young viewers favor fact-based over sensational tone, visual explanations and device-native pacing, clear contextual background, and protagonists and “solutions” that involve credible actors, concrete actions, and realistic options. The study specifies these engagement cues in observable terms and demonstrates journalism education as a structured testing ground for evidence-based format innovation in collaboration with broadcasters that can inform newsroom practice.

Keywords

media convergence/cross-platform journalism < news format broadcast < news format newsroom practices < business of journalism experimental < method

Introduction

Younger audiences’ relationship with news is being reshaped by a mobile-first, platform-driven environment in which short-form video and algorithmic feeds dominate everyday attention. For many 18- to 25-year olds, news is no longer something they “go to” at a fixed time on a familiar channel, but something that “comes across” incidentally while they are doing something else online (Boczkowski et al., 2018). At the same time, long-running international surveys show that legacy broadcasters remain among the most trusted sources of information for younger adults (Newman et al., 2024, 2025). This combination of high baseline trust and low habitual use poses a structural challenge for public-interest journalism: it is not only where young people encounter news that has changed, but how they are willing to spend attention on it, under what emotional conditions, and in which formats.

Recent work on news avoidance and engagement places emotion and cognitive load at the center of this problem. Younger users describe feeling overwhelmed, depressed, or powerless in the face of crisis-saturated coverage, and increasingly avoid news as a way to protect their wellbeing (de Bruin et al., 2025; Ejaz et al., 2025; Fletcher & Nielsen, 2018; Newman et al., 2024). At the same time, they expect news to be personally relevant, quickly understandable, and easy to re-share in visual form (Masullo et al., 2021; Shearer et al., 2024). The emerging News Engagement Process Model argues that engagement is best understood as a sequence, linking exposure, attention, emotional response, sense-making, and subsequent outcomes such as discussion or action (Shin & Miller, 2025). For television and video-led journalism, this raises a specific question: which features of story form—visual, narrative, and tonal—help younger viewers move from fleeting exposure in a feed to sustained engagement with public-interest content?

Large comparative studies have mapped these shifts primarily through surveys and interviews. The Next Gen News project, for instance, shows that young adults in Nigeria, India, and the United States want news that comes from relatable voices, speaks to their everyday dilemmas, and offers a path from swipeable updates to deeper explanation when they choose to lean in (Itzkowitz et al., 2024). Pew's recent report on Young Adults and the Future of News likewise finds a strong preference for visually rich, short-form formats on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, but also frustration when these formats lack context or credible sourcing (Forman-Katz et al., 2025). Parallel experiments with local television in the United States suggest that adding explanatory graphics, reporter-as-guide segments and subject-driven storytelling can improve comprehension and appeal without sacrificing journalistic rigor (Beaudet & Wihbey, 2019; Beaudet et al., 2021). What is still rare, however, are studies that combine such newsroom-style experimentation with qualitative audience evaluation and explicit pedagogical goals, particularly in smaller media systems.

This study builds on the Journalism Research Lab: Innovative Storytelling Practices to Engage New Audiences (JOURLAB),¹ a four-phase mixed-methods initiative at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb designed to test how specific audiovisual choices affect young viewers’ responses to television news. The project combined a national survey, a content analysis of prime-time television news, student-produced A/B versions of television packages, and comparative focus groups with viewers aged 18–25. It was conceived both as an audience study and as a “live lab” within Program Y, where journalism students learn to design, produce and iteratively refine news formats on the basis of real audience feedback.

The study focuses on three questions: (1) which audiovisual formats and storytelling techniques do young viewers in Croatia aged 18–25 describe as most engaging and useful when watching television news? (2) how do they perceive and evaluate constructive or solutions-oriented news approaches in these formats? and (3) which pedagogical arrangements—such as newsroom simulations, A/B testing, and broadcaster partnerships—appear most promising for preparing students to create content that reflects and responds to younger audiences’ consumption habits? Guided by the literature on news engagement, visual storytelling and constructive journalism, we work with three expectations: that trust in broadcasters does not automatically translate into regular use; that persistent negativity, when not balanced with agency and realistic options, encourages avoidance; and that certain formal features—visual explanation, pacing that fits mobile viewing, and clearly signposted narrative structure—are pre-conditions for deeper engagement with public-interest stories.

By bringing together newsroom-grade experimentation, audience-centered qualitative evaluation, and a design-based pedagogical framework, the study aims to offer both empirical insight and a replicable model for rethinking television news for what we describe as the “Visual Generation”: viewers defined not only by what they watch, but by how they watch, when they disengage, and under which conditions they are willing to re-engage.

Literature Review

Youth News Consumption

While young people remain interested in news, the way they consume their news media diet has changed drastically. The Next Gen News study, produced by FT Strategies and KnightLab and conducted in the United States, India, and Nigeria, reveals a growing gap between the news experience younger audiences want and what they are currently receiving (Itzkowitz et al., 2024). Research by the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin also shows that younger audiences respond more positively to news formats that emphasize visual storytelling, concise explanations, and a solutions-oriented tone (Masullo et al., 2021). Similarly, the Reuters Institute Digital News Report (2025) highlights that European youth increasingly prefer formats that combine visual immediacy with narrative clarity, especially on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Complementing these findings, a recent Pew-Knight synthesis on “Young Adults and the Future of News” shows that only 15% of Americans aged 18–29 say they follow the news all or most of the time. Yet this group is more likely than any other age cohort to get news from social media and to trust information from social platforms as much as information from national news organizations (Forman-Katz et al., 2025). Together, these studies point to a generation that does not reject news per se, but encounters it in ways that are incidental, visually driven, and shaped by platform logic rather than scheduled broadcasts.

As younger audiences continue to migrate away from traditional television, platforms like YouTube and TikTok are increasingly shaping how news is discovered, consumed, and trusted. The centrality of TikTok has deepened even further. A March 2024 Pew-Knight survey found that the share of U.S. adult TikTok users who regularly get news there more than doubled since 2020, rising from 22% to 52%. Notably, TikTok users are just as likely to get news from influencers (68%) as from journalists (67%) (Pew Research Center, 2024; Shearer et al., 2024).

In response, TikTok launched “Footnotes” in July 2025—a crowdsourced fact-checking feature that lets vetted users add contextual notes to videos. Modeled after Community Notes on X and Meta, the tool reflects TikTok's shift from entertainment platform to major news gateway, forcing newsrooms to confront the fact that they now compete within an attention ecology where credibility, affect, and platform-native esthetics are tightly intertwined (Presser, 2025).

This shift points to a broader structural challenge in journalism: the issue is not only where stories are delivered, but how they are visually and narratively constructed. While the above-mentioned studies relied on surveys or online interviews, the Croatian study stands out as the only one conducted through in-person focus groups, facilitated by the study's authors. In this sense, the Croatian case is more than an isolated example and has global implications. It illustrates how innovation in audiovisual journalism, when guided by empirical audience research and embedded within educational practice, can offer a model for recalibrating journalism education in the age of the visual turn.

Long-running international surveys show that while most Europeans under 30 continue to trust legacy broadcasters, they rarely rely on them as a primary gateway to news. According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025, television ranks as the most trusted medium in 34 of 47 markets. However, only 24% of 18-to-24-year olds identify it as their first point of contact for news, compared with 64% who start their news journey on social media or messaging apps (Newman et al., 2025). The Pew-Knight analysis similarly finds that 70% of U.S. 18- to 29-year olds say they mostly get political news “because they happen to come across it,” rather than because they actively look for it (Forman-Katz et al., 2025). Croatian data reflect this broader trend. A nationally representative survey conducted as part of JOURLAB project confirms that while television remains a daily news source for approximately 60% of adults overall, it drops to third place among 18-to-29-year olds, behind news portals and social feeds (Perišin et al., 2021a, 2021b). Focus group respondents describe a “scroll-then-Google” routine, in which a bulletin clip on TikTok must hook them “within the first few milliseconds” or lose them to the next swipe. This behavior illustrates a broader mode of news engagement—initial exposure through algorithm-driven feeds, followed by selective follow-up only when the content is instantly compelling (Boczkowski et al., 2018; Fletcher & Nielsen, 2018; Oblak et al., 2025). The present study first asks which specific audiovisual formats and storytelling techniques young viewers in Croatia aged 18–25 describe as most engaging and useful when they do encounter television news (RQ1).

News Avoidance, Emotion, and Engagement

These behavioral shifts coincide with a documented surge in news avoidance. De Bruin et al.'s Delphi study finds that scholars and editors converge on “emotional fatigue” and “perceived negativity” as primary drivers among young audiences (de Bruin et al., 2025), a diagnosis echoed in Croatian testimony that labels prime-time bulletins “depressing,” “dramatic,” and “disconnected” from everyday concerns. Recent cross-European analyses likewise warn that avoidance rates have climbed fastest among the youngest cohorts, especially when coverage dwells on polarizing politics or climate doom (Ejaz et al., 2025; Newman et al., 2024; Oblak et al., 2025). Building on this work, Shin and Miller's News Engagement Process Model conceptualizes news engagement as a feedback loop between journalists’ behavioral engagement and audiences’ psychological and behavioral engagement, with emotional reactions occupying a central mediating role. Psychological engagement is defined as rich, “felt” experiences, both emotional and cognitive involvement that may either facilitate participation or trigger disengagement, depending on whether news induces hope, anger, fatigue, or distrust. Affective experiences are not a side-effect but a structural component of engagement, particularly for younger users whose news encounters are brief, fragmented, and highly mediated by platforms (Shin & Miller, 2025).

Building on these survey-based patterns, the Next Gen News project uses in-depth qualitative work with 18- to 25-year olds in three countries to map an “Ideal News Experience” anchored in trusted sources, personal relevance, and agile storytelling (Itzkowitz et al., 2024). The Croatian case aligns with these findings, but adds a distinctive focus on television as a platform: here television is still seen as credible and serious, yet its traditional formats do not match the visual intensity and emotional tone that young audiences expect from news. This literature underpins our expectation that repeated exposure to highly negative, threat-focused coverage—without cues of agency or realistic options—leads many young people to consciously avoid news (“negativity-driven avoidance”), and that emotional response is therefore central to how they evaluate different storytelling approaches examined in this study (RQ2).

Visual Storytelling, Explainer Formats, and Reporter Presence

Parallel to these behavioral trends, Beaudet & Wihbey's newsroom experiments provide a pivotal empirical bridge between audience desire and production practice. As practitioners and also journalism professors at Northeastern University in Boston, they understood the disconnect between traditional local TV news and younger audience members. To help with their quest, they partnered with six local TV stations. They were given original broadcast stories and then the students experimented and remixed the original stories. The students added animated explainers and reporter-as-guide pieces. The focus was on subjects telling stories in their own words as opposed to reporter narration-driven storytelling. After the production phase, audience research with 600 participants compared the original stories and the remixed videos. The results revealed that younger audiences aren’t necessarily looking for short, simplified content like media outlets often assume, but rather, well-reported stories with clearly explained points and context. The audience preferred the “new” style of remixed stories (Beaudet & Wihbey, 2019; Beaudet et al., 2021). These findings suggest that form, especially visual explanation, strong narrative openings or “hooks,” and reporter presence can be a decisive engagement factor when topic and length remain constant.

In this study, we use “visual density” to refer to formats that layer graphics, maps, and on-screen text to condense and clarify complex information, and “device-native pacing” to describe short shots, fast openings, and front-loaded key points that match the rhythm of viewing on phones. “Narrative hooks” are understood as compelling opening images, questions or statements designed to capture attention within the first few seconds of a video. Prior work suggests that such formal features can lower cognitive load, support comprehension, and help younger viewers decide whether to invest attention in a story.

Against this backdrop, our first research question (RQ1) focuses on how young viewers themselves describe the visual, structural, and performative features that make television news formats feel engaging, modern, and useful.

Constructive Journalism and Solutions-Oriented Approach

A growing body of research therefore suggests that how stories are reported and how they look are at least as important as what they are about. Solutions-oriented or constructive journalism, popularized by Haagerup (2014) and empirically elaborated by McIntyre (2019), proposes adding evidence-based responses to the standard “problem focused” narrative. In this article, we understand constructive or solutions-oriented approaches as reporting that moves beyond describing what is wrong to show who is doing what, with what effects, and what options exist going forward. In Croatia, the concept was tested in its local viability (Perišin & Kovačević, 2018), and JOURLAB participants repeatedly demanded “more stories about solutions, progress and the future.” Accordingly, a constructive angle—explicit pathways, agency, hope—was embedded as a variable in one tested video pair. Within the framework of the news engagement model, such constructive elements can be read as attempts to channel psychological engagement away from fatigue and avoidance and toward cognitively and affectively productive states.

What remains under-explored in this literature is how younger viewers themselves experience such constructive elements within concrete audiovisual packages, and under which conditions they perceive them as credible rather than superficial. The second research question (RQ2) therefore examines how young viewers perceive and evaluate constructive or solutions-oriented approaches when it is embedded in television-style news packages.

Journalism Labs, Experimental Formats, and Pedagogy

Embedding these insights in journalism education requires re-thinking both method and partnership. Controlled experiments integrated into coursework sharpen students’ understanding of audience effects (Thorson et al., 2012). The European Broadcasting Union's “live lab” model calls for universities to co-produce pilots with broadcasters (European Broadcasting Union, 2018). Following the recommendations, European Public Service Media (PSM) have implemented innovation departments or labs that seem to be useful for experimenting and developing innovative ideas regarding technologies, content, audiences, and other areas (Zaragoza Fuster and Garcia Aviles, 2024). There are 17 PSM labs identified, (e.g., BBC News Labs, RTVE Lab, YLE News Lab, etc.). Forms of collaboration are developing between editorial newsrooms and the academic community with the aim of finding new models for producing innovative news content and formats in order to attract new audiences (Lopezosa et al., 2021; Perišin et al., 2024a, 2024b). The goal of all these laboratories and collaborations is the “disruption” of news—a term that calls for a redefinition of journalistic formats (e.g., television news), but not a redefinition of the essence of journalism (BEA, 2019).

The research presented in this article originated from a similar journalism laboratory established at Journalism and Media Production Department at the Faculty of Political Science (JOURLAB). It operationalizes both prescriptions: mentored student teams produced A/B versions that varied only one or two narrative elements and tested them with audiences. This approach accelerated students’ mastery of storytelling motion-graphic scripting, the use of narrative hooks in news openings, and constructive approach. Within the news engagement process model, live lab settings connect journalists’ (and students’) practical work with structured chances to see how audiences pay attention, feel and interpret stories, and to adjust formats accordingly.

This design also allows us to observe how specific pedagogical arrangements such as newsroom simulations, A/B testing in class, and cooperation with a national broadcaster shape students’ understanding of what works for younger audiences. The third research question (RQ3) therefore focuses on which pedagogical models appear most promising for preparing students to create content that reflects and responds to the Visual Generation's consumption habits.

Taken together, existing research points to three practical insights that guide this study. First, credibility alone does not guarantee news consumption: trust in television co-exists with mobile-first consumption habits; second, emotional response plays a decisive role in engagement. Repeated exposure to highly negative, threat-focused coverage—especially when it offers no sense of agency or solutions—leads many young people to consciously avoid news, a pattern often described as negativity-driven avoidance. This avoidance can be reduced when negative topics are balanced with cues of action, solutions, or hope. Third, the form of news strongly shapes how audiences process information. Visual density (such as graphics, maps, and on-screen text that condense complex information), strong narrative hooks in the opening seconds (compelling opening) and pacing designed for mobile devices help younger viewers grasp key points on first viewing and decide whether to keep watching.

By bringing together cross-national survey findings, experimental newsroom evidence, and audience insights from Croatia, the JOURLAB situates itself within a broader effort to rethink public-interest journalism for a visually oriented generation.

Methodology

The project combined four sequential parts of research: survey, content analysis, experimental production, and audience evaluation within an explanatory mixed-methods case study design. The early quantitative phases mapped the problem space by distinguishing between perceived credibility and everyday usage of television news, while the later qualitative strand probed why specific narrative and visual interventions resonated (or failed) with young viewers. This progressive structure of the project ensured that insights from each stage fed forward to the next, creating an iterative feedback loop between newsroom experimentation and audience evidence.

Phase 1—National Survey

The study began with What the Audience Wants, a quota-sampled national survey of Croatian adults (N = 1,005). The instrument mapped gaps between viewers’ expectations—especially those of young adults—and the content and form of mainstream television news. The questionnaire included modules on (a) frequency of use of different news platforms, (b) perceived credibility of different news sources, and (c) preferred topics and formats. Platform use was measured with frequency scales (from “never” to “every day”), while perceived credibility was measured using Likert-type items asking respondents to rate how much they trusted each source (from “not at all” to “a great deal”). These items allowed us to distinguish respondents who regarded television news as credible but did not use it regularly—a pattern particularly prominent among 18- to 29-year olds.

Phase 2—Content Analysis of Broadcast Practice

To establish an industry baseline, the research team coded 138 prime-time daily newscasts from HRT, RTL, and Nova TV, one public and two private nationwide news outlets. The corpus included 1,121 first-run news items and 679 coded indicators, allowing for a systematic analysis of prevailing news reporting conventions. The coding scheme covered four clusters of variables: (1) topic and geography; (2) visual style (type and duration of shots, presence of stand-ups, use of graphics and maps); (3) narrative voice (third-person voice-over, reporter on camera, protagonist-led sequences); and (4) indicators of constructive or solutions-oriented approach (explicit description of responses, actors, and future options). Coding categories were derived from prior work on television news formats and constructive journalism and refined in a pilot round. Two coders independently coded an initial subsample of bulletins, discussed discrepancies, and adjusted the codebook; intercoder agreement on key structural variables was consistently high. The findings reveal a dominance of national political coverage across all four national TV channels. There is minimal effort to present complex topics in a visually engaging or explanatory manner. The typical reporting style relies heavily on third-person voice-over narration, with live segments used primarily for interviews rather than for showing unfolding events. International news is featured less frequently, and when included, it often lacks context or clear explanation. The overall structure and style of the newscasts remain consistent across channels, reinforcing a uniform approach to news delivery (Blažević et al., 2022). This baseline informed the experimental interventions in Phase 3, which deliberately departed from these conventions along a small number of clearly defined visual and narrative dimensions.

Phase 3—Experimental Production

Guided by insights from Phases 1–2, student production teams mentored by JOURLAB project faculty created six video packages on four environmental themes—global warming, rising sea levels, urban over-development, and composting/urban gardens. Environmental topics were chosen because they combine high public-interest value with documented patterns of “climate fatigue” among young audiences, and because they lend themselves to both visual explanation (graphs, maps, before/after imagery) and constructive approach (adaptation measures, local initiatives). Two of the total eight packages originated as local-news items on HRT; the public broadcaster supplied the raw footage and authorized alternative edits, enabling direct comparison between legacy and experimental treatments.

For every topic, the teams produced two experimentally contrastive versions. In the urban-development and compost stories, Version A was the original broadcast package with traditional TV conventions (anchor lead-in, third-person voice-over, minimal graphics). Version B introduced one or more purposeful design interventions: additional motion graphics and infographics, protagonist-centred storytelling, and more conversational voice-over.

In global warming and sea-level rise, both versions were prototype treatments rather than “traditional versus innovative” opposites. In Global Warming, Version A was a data-led explainer built around motion graphics, whereas Version B replaced most graphics with a reporter-led “walk-and-talk” narrative. In Sea-Level Rise, Version A employed a problem-oriented, expert-driven structure; Version B foregrounded solutions and adaptive urban-planning measures and included a young local protagonist involved in environmental advocacy.

Across all four pairs, the productions differed by only one or two controlled variables: presence versus absence of a protagonist; more versus less visual density; problem-only versus constructive ending—maximizing internal validity and allowing clearer attribution of any audience effects. In the context of this study, design interventions refer to specific, pre-defined changes to pacing (shorter shots, key information grouped as hooks), visualization (graphics, maps, on-screen text) and narrative focus (reporter-as-guide, protagonist presence, constructive ending) introduced into otherwise comparable packages.

Phase 4—Audience Evaluation

Eight focus groups involving 64 participants aged 18–25 were conducted in Zagreb, Osijek, Split, and Rijeka. Participants viewed the paired A/B videos and took part in guided comparative discussions, enabling the researchers to probe why specific narrative or visual interventions resonated, or failed to resonate with young viewers.

Participants were recruited through Ipsos Puls agency² using age-screening quotas to mirror Croatia's 18–25 population. Two age sub-groups: 18–21 and 22–25 captured developmental differences in news habits. Each city hosted one younger and one older group (total 8 groups; n = 64; 35 ♀ / 29 ♂). Heterogeneity in education and employment status was maintained to maximize discursive range.

Focus-group sessions (180 min, with intermission) followed a two-stage protocol: (1) open discussion of everyday news practices and trust perceptions; (2) sequential screening of the paired packages (counterbalanced order) followed by moderated comparison.

In Stage 1, participants were asked which news sources they considered most accurate, serious and believable, and separately which sources they actually used on a typical day or week. Perceived credibility was operationalized as participants’ spontaneous evaluations of sources they described as “accurate,” “serious,” “professional,” “reliable” or “real news.” Statements that positioned television news as a benchmark of “real news,” even when participants reported watching bulletins only rarely, were coded as credibility judgements rather than as indicators of regular use. In contrast, references to how often and in what ways they consumed news (for example, “I mostly scroll social media,” “I almost never watch TV news”) were coded as usage.

In Stage 2, participants viewed the paired A/B videos (with the order counterbalanced across groups) and, immediately after viewing each pair, participants were invited to indicate which version they found more engaging, clearer and more trustworthy, and to explain their choice in their own words. Negativity-driven avoidance was operationalized by attending to how participants linked their emotional reactions to subsequent viewing intentions. Expressions such as “depressing,” “too much doom,” “it kills my mood” or “I don’t want to think about it,” followed by comments like “I would switch it off” or “I’d rather skip these stories,” were coded as instances where negative affect prompted a desire to disengage. Conversely, when participants acknowledged serious or disturbing content but added that a story “shows what people are doing,” “gives you ideas” or “feels less hopeless,” their responses were coded as indications that agency and realistic hope mitigated avoidance despite strong emotions. Evaluations such as “more dynamic,” “boring,” “too static,” “too fast” were coded as assessments of device-native pacing, visual density, and overall narrative hooks. Mentions of “missing background,” “no context,” or “I need someone to follow” were used as indicators of perceived structural absence or presence of context and protagonist.

Conversations were video-recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis. Moderators adhered to a semi-structured guide but encouraged peer interaction to elicit spontaneous evaluations of style, tone, and perceived usefulness.

An initial coding framework was developed after several close readings of all eight focus-group transcripts. Alongside open codes for patterns that emerged from the data, clusters were created around three themes derived from literature: engagement cues (visual density, narrative voice, protagonist presence), emotional response (hope, fatigue, irritation), and perceived credibility. The framework was then iteratively refined in discussion with other members of the PROJECT Y team, who read selected excerpts and challenged preliminary interpretations. Following Braun and Clarke's (2022) reflexive thematic approach, the final themes were treated not as fixed “discoveries” but as analytically constructed summaries grounded in participants’ own language. Results are context-bound: purposive city sampling and the environmental news focus limit external transferability. General claims should therefore be framed as analytical rather than statistical generalizations.

Findings & Analysis

The focus-group sessions revealed a complex and layered picture of young Croatians’ engagement with audiovisual news, offering critical insights into both emotional and cognitive responses to experimental storytelling techniques. Across eight sessions participants articulated a tension between their declared trust in television as a medium and their simultaneous detachment from its conventional forms. In this sense, television occupied a paradoxical position: it was still recognized as a benchmark of “real news,” yet was rarely the first screen they turned to in everyday life.

Significant differences emerged between the younger (18–21) and older (22–25) groups. The younger group displayed more passive, incidental news engagement, primarily via social media, focusing on entertainment and local issues. The older group exhibited a more proactive and critical approach, actively seeking out diverse sources and showing greater concern for source quality and bias. These differences in age groups suggest that any attempt to redesign television news for younger audiences must accommodate both swipe-driven, incidental exposure, and more deliberate, analytical forms of engagement.

Youth News Routines, Trust, and Emotional Responses

Trust and Credibility: Between Skepticism and Conditional Acceptance

One of the most striking insights to emerge from the focus-group discussions was the deep skepticismthat young audiences hold towards traditional media, particularly television news. Participants consistently expressed reservations about the credibility of journalists and news outlets, underscoring a widespread perception of manipulation and sensationalism. As one participant from Rijeka observed, “The problem is, when some news has already happened—or something—you find one report, and then you find a new post that presents it differently… Who should you trust?” (Participant 1, 21, Rijeka) At the same time, their trust was highly conditional. Participants differentiated between “abstract” or “distant” news stories and concrete, everyday factual updates. As one respondent noted, “When it's a concrete piece of news—like fuel prices going up, for example—I trust it, because it's factual and immediately obvious.” (Participant 1, 21, Rijeka). Another explained that they distrust coverage framed as a “sensational tragedy or headline-grabbing scandal,” but accept parliamentary reports as “official” because “They can’t really report that kind of news incorrectly without getting into trouble” (Participant 7, 20, Zagreb).

Taken together, these accounts highlight a central challenge for journalists and confirm the first proposition of this study: for young viewers, credibility and usage are decoupled. They are willing to see institutional political coverage as accurate and “official” when it sticks to verifiable proceedings, yet they still avoid television news when its storytelling leans into dramatized conflict and emotionally charged framing that feels manipulative compared with the more controllable, feed-based environments on their phones.

Emotional Responses and Negativity-Driven Avoidance

Emotional reactions to news content revealed a dual pattern: strong emotional sensitivity coupled with protective disengagement. Many described feelings of sadness, frustration, or helplessness when confronted with negative or crisis-driven news narratives. As a participant from Rijeka articulated after viewing a climate change segment, “It's just depressing – as an individual I can’t do anything.” (Participant 2, 20, Rijeka). Others said they had “made peace” with the idea that it was “too late to do anything meaningful,” or that they did not care what happens “in 100 years” because they “won’t be alive” (Participants 3, 20, Rijeka; 1, 20, Split). Such comments offer the clearest expression of negativity-driven avoidance: when negative affect is not accompanied by a sense of agency, the easiest response is to tune out.

Yet, despite general disengagement, certain emotional hooks did succeed in prompting reflection or empathy. One participant recalled only a single detail from a sea-level rise package: a reference to the Zlatni rat beach on the island of Brač, where they had swum as children. “That's basically one of the only things from the whole video that stuck with me” (Participant 1, 21, Rijeka). This suggests that personally relevant locations or experiences can temporarily cut through fatigue, provided they are embedded within a broader explanatory frame.

Forms, Visuals, and Pacing

Visual Density and Narrative Structure: Preferences and Paradoxes

A strong preference emerged among participants for visually dense, explanatory storytelling—video content that combines dynamic visuals like infographics, animated maps, and data visualizations with clear narrative structure. Participants treated strong camera work and basic visual rhythm as a baseline expectation; what distinguished successful formats was the addition of visuals that actively supported comprehension. “What we need, unfortunately, is more charts and graphs that say: look, it was here, and now it's here - let's do it that way.” (Participant 7, 20, Rijeka)

Participants consistently described B-versions of the video packages, which were layered with animated graphs, maps, and data overlays, as more “modern,” “quicker,” and “mobile.” Several participants used terms like “TikTok tempo” or “Instagram style” to describe desired pacing: short shots, front-loaded key information, and a strong visual hook in the opening seconds. “If a video grabs me visually, I’ll keep watching; if it doesn’t, I move on.” (Participant 3, 21, Split).

However, visual density was not uniformly effective. Poorly designed or overly complex graphics triggered confusion and disengagement. Participants distinguished sharply between visuals that explain and visuals that merely decorate. Packages that combined expert commentary with clear, animated visual explanations were perceived as both more engaging and more trustworthy: “When there's an expert on screen together with an explanatory animation, I trust it more—because I can follow exactly what they’re saying.” (Participant 3, 21, Zagreb). This suggests that visual elements can operate as credibility cues when they make expertise more legible and transparent.

Device-Centric Consumption and Attention Span

The influence of mobile-first consumption habits on news engagement emerged clearly across all groups. Participants discussed their shrinking attention spans candidly, often blaming it on habitual swiping and rapid content consumption on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. “Our attention span is extremely short - almost non-existent - and it only gets worse because we consume content the TikTok/Instagram way: swipe up, swipe down.” (Participant 8, 21, Split). At the same time, they rejected the idea that they only want short content. Several said they were willing to watch long documentaries or explainer videos “if it interests me” and if it offers “professional cinematography” and “beautiful visuals” (Participant 6, 19, Rijeka). For them, the issue was less the absolute length of content and more its structural and esthetic appeal, particularly in the first 15–20 s where device-native pacing is decisive.

This duality suggests that digital-native audiences demand content that is at once concise and immersive: visually dynamic enough to win the initial swipe, yet substantively rich enough to reward continued attention.

Context, Protagonists, and Constructive Approach

Missing Context: A Structural Barrier to Youth Engagement

Alongside calls for visual clarity, another dominant critique that surfaced across all focus-group sessions was the perceived lack of contextual depth in mainstream news reporting. They described coverage as fragmented and reductive, failing to provide the background needed to understand global or national events. This structural absence of context was not only frustrating but was repeatedly cited as a key reason for disengagement and eventual news avoidance. “They don’t explain why something is happening; instead, they immediately decide who's to blame.” (Participant 5, 25, Split). The expectation for layered explanations—what had happened, why it was happening now, and who was responsible—was especially strong in relation to complex international stories. Some participants compared Croatian coverage unfavorably to international media like the BBC, “to make up their own mind” because domestic coverage felt like “jumping into the middle”(Participant 5, 25, Split).

This demand for context extended to domestic stories, especially those concerning climate change or urban development. One respondent complained that citizens were being asked to react to problems “they didn’t create,” without any explanation of how earlier decisions and policies led to the current situation (Participant 8, 21, Rijeka). When such explanations were missing, participants felt disempowered and excluded: “On the news I feel it's already pitched to people who already know what it's about… it's really aimed at older folks, not at me.”(Participant 2, 20, Zagreb). These critiques help explain why constructive or solutions-oriented elements, when present, were welcomed only if embedded within a coherent narrative structure that linked problems, causes, and possible forward-looking options.

Relatable Protagonists

Within the broader preference for visual and narrative clarity, one element repeatedly elevated participant engagement: the presence of relatable, human protagonists. News packages that introduced an individual character—especially someone with a clear emotional arc or local connection—elicited more sustained attention and deeper discussion. Rather than remaining passive observers of information, participants were more likely to project themselves into stories when those stories were told by a person with whom they could identify. This pattern echoes parasocial research showing that familiarity and emotional resonance with “ordinary” or local figures can foster deeper investment (Liseblad & Pelizarro, 2021).

The sea-level rise package featuring Lara, a young environmental advocate from Split, exemplified this ambivalence. For some, Lara served as an effective entry point: “She's really an example of what we ought to be – aware and trying to make a difference” (Participant 4, 21, Zagreb). For others, she felt performative and inconsequential: “Basically, she hasn’t done anything except pose for a few photos around Split… They wanted to make it more personalised, but all they really achieved is that Lara exists – and that's it” (Participants 7, 20, and 6, 23, Rijeka).

Generational contrasts were also apparent. Participants aged 22–25 generally were more likely to value the protagonist as an emotional anchor and narrative guide, whereas some younger participants (18–21) rejected characters they perceived as overly stylized or “influencer-like” giving “YouTuber vibes.” One participant contrasted a more performative version with a preferred alternative that came across as a real news report — it actually delivered information.” (Participant 8, 21, Split).

The implication for journalistic storytelling is clear: protagonists must be credible, purposeful, and narratively integrated. Their presence should not merely illustrate a theme but actively advance the viewer's understanding of it. The implication for journalists is that on-camera presence is welcome when it clarifies narrative logic, yet must not drift into performative self-branding.

Constructive and Solutions-Oriented Approach

The experimental attempts to adopt a constructive or solutions-oriented approach elicited sharply divided opinions. Many participants expressed fatigue with constant negativity and asked for stories that completed the problem narrative with realistic pathways, actors and options: “It's silly to just say, ‘We’ve got a problem - so now what?’ I want to hear what we can actually do.” (Participant 6, 21, Split). Others said they would “turn it off right away” if a story spent minutes telling them “how bad and terrible it will be” without any sense of what might change (Participant 1, 25, Osijek). At the same time, constructive or solution-oriented approach attempts were quickly rejected when they felt superficial. The inclusion of Lara in the sea-level rise video exemplified this tension: several participants said they would have preferred the “constructive” version only “if someone had genuinely done something and achieved real change” (Participant 1, 20, Split). Others saw the ending as “playing on empathy… rather than on what's actually happening” (Participant 2, 20, Rijeka). Overall, the focus-group discussions suggest that solutions-oriented approaches may reduce news fatigue when they foreground credible actors, concrete actions, and visible outcomes, but that thin or symbolic “positivity” risks reinforcing cynicism.

This reaction illustrates a critical challenge for constructive journalism which must therefore avoid appearing patronizing or emotionally exploitative, while still offering audiences plausible ways of understanding and responding to complex problems.

Implications for Research Questions

Taken together, these patterns speak directly to the study's three research questions. Regarding the first question, young viewers in our sample engaged most strongly with formats that combined perceived credibility with emotionally manageable coverage, strong narrative hooks, explanatory visual density, and device-native pacing; legacy television remained a reference point for “real news” but was rarely chosen when its grammar felt slow, distant, or exhausting compared with the rest of their feed. For the second question, the focus groups showed that constructive and solutions-oriented elements were welcomed when they offered credible actors, concrete actions, and visible consequences, but were quickly dismissed as manipulative when they appeared thin, symbolic, or insufficiently contextualized. Finally, in relation to the third question, the ways participants spoke about credibility, affect, and form point to a clear pedagogical agenda: journalism programs that treat visual grammar, character construction, and constructive storytelling approaches as core skills—tested and refined in live lab settings with real audiences—are better positioned to prepare students to design formats that meet the Visual Generation where they are, while preserving the values of public-interest journalism.

Discussion

This study examined how specific TV news storytelling techniques and framing practices can be adapted to better engage young audiences in Croatia. Building upon JOURLAB sequential mixed-methods design this study explores the expectations and frustrations of the Visual Generation

Focus-group evidence shows that the gap between young audiences and television news is not solely technological but also cognitive and emotional. Participants are not disengaged from journalism as a practice, but from how it is conventionally packaged and presented: problem-saturated narratives, unclear story structures, and the absence of relatable voices. They reserved their attention for formats that fit their everyday screen habits and do not feel overwhelming. This pattern mirrors the “hierarchy of needs” described in the FT Strategies & Knight Center Next Gen News work, where trusted sources, relevance, and usable storytelling must align before young adults choose to invest attention (Itzkowitz et al., 2024). Empirically, the study confirms that credibility, emotional response, and format work together: young audiences may trust television in the abstract, yet still avoid it when its visual and narrative grammar feels hard to follow or emotionally draining.

Consistently across sessions and age groups, participants reported higher engagement with the experimental B-versions of the news packages, which introduced targeted changes in pacing, graphic density (infographics and animation), choice of protagonists and their portrayal, and constructive tone. Their preference for visual-explanatory formats points to a shift in how news must be conceived for mobile-first platforms. Television's legacy grammar—recorded third-person voice-over, conventional structure (often chronological), and passive visuals (wallpaper B-roll)—no longer holds attention or trust when it competes with platform-native video in the same feed. At the same time, participants did not reject the on-camera presence of the reporter; they generally liked conversational, walk-and-talk segments, as long as the reporter's tone, dress, and language still signaled institutional professionalism.

These patterns echo Beaudet and Wihbey's experimental findings in the U.S., where remixed, explainer-style local TV stories outperformed original versions among younger viewers, who preferred clearly structured, visually supported explanations over traditional packages (Beaudet & Wihbey, 2019; Beaudet et al., 2021). They are also consistent with international reports such as the Reuters Digital News Report and the Next Gen News initiative, which identify a global demand for format agility (moving audiences from swipeable clips to deeper explainers), emotional realism (depicting genuine emotion without melodrama), and narrative clarity (stories with a clear beginning, middle and end). This study adds specificity to those claims by systematically testing design interventions—purposeful, low-level changes to pacing, visual density and narrative focus—within a single cultural and pedagogical context. It demonstrates that how information is presented, not merely what is being reported, is crucial for whether young viewers understand, stay with and emotionally invest in public-interest stories. The combination of controlled A/B edits and in-depth focus groups offers a practical model for moving toward iterative, evidence-based format decisions in TV newsrooms.

Constructive Journalism and the Limits of Positivity

One of the study's distinctive contributions is in its focus on constructive journalism from the standpoint of youth reception. While previous scholarship has tended to advocate for solutions-oriented approaches as a normative good, the focus-group data reveal a more complex picture. Participants welcomed efforts to move beyond negativity, but rejected narratives that felt overly didactic, emotionally manipulative, or disconnected from real-world agency. This nuance refines more prescriptive strands of constructive journalism literature (e.g., Bro, 2023; Haagerup, 2014; McIntyre, 2019) by showing that “adding solutions” is not automatically perceived as empowering, especially when audiences do not see tangible impact or credible actors.

Constructive elements were most effective when they were embedded in a coherent narrative arc that included the problem, background context, and forward-looking options. This supports what one participant called “cognitive completeness”; audiences stay engaged when they understand not only what is wrong but also who is doing what and which responses are realistic. Educators and producers should therefore be cautious about treating positivity as an afterthought. In practical terms, constructive elements need to shape who appears in the story, in what sequence, and with what evidence, rather than being added as a brief “positive” ending to otherwise conventional, problem-focused reporting.

The Pedagogical Opportunity: Bridging Curriculum and Newsroom Workflow

One of the most actionable insights from this research lies in its implications for journalism education. The success of the single-variable A/B testing framework—where student teams altered only one or two narrative elements per version—demonstrates that newsroom experimentation can be translated into the classroom. This structure simplified feedback, strengthened internal validity, and mirrored the kinds of format innovation now expected in forward-looking media organizations. It also resonates with European Broadcasting Union calls for “news labs” and experimental units that trial new formats in controlled ways before scaling them (EBU, 2018; Zaragoza-Fuster & García-Avilés, 2024).

The project also revealed specific skill gaps. Students struggled most with the techniques that audiences valued the most: motion-graphic scripting, animated explainers, and confident conversational narration. Addressing these gaps requires a curricular recalibration. Courses must move beyond teaching students to report and instead teach them to design stories for attention. This includes scripting for visual logic, mastering platform-specific conventions, and integrating data into narrative without losing clarity. In the JOURLAB project context, student teams now prototype paired news packages, run mini-focus groups, and iterate on the basis of viewer feedback—compressing the full research cycle into one semester.³ The aim is less to teach software than to normalize evidence-led judgement about credibility cues (experts on screen, clear sourcing, public-service branding), affective load (how emotionally heavy or draining a story feels), and narrative pacing (whether the story moves at a rhythm that keeps mobile-first viewers engaged).

Contextual Constraints and Generalizability

As with any case study, the findings must be interpreted with caution. The data reflect the views of a purposive, non-random sample of Croatian youth, primarily urban and digitally literate, and focus on environmental issues. These parameters limit the statistical generalizability of the results. Media ecosystems, platform norms, and socio-political dynamics vary widely across contexts.

Nevertheless, the study's analytic insights—especially the set of engagement cues we identify and the conditions under which constructive approach works—offer transferable heuristics for other settings. What can be generalized is not a fixed narrative formula, but a design principle: engaging the Visual Generation means offering news that is easy to follow on a first viewing, emotionally bearable and clearly structured around problem, background, and options. In this sense, the study's contribution is best understood as an analytical rather than a statistical generalization: it proposes concrete design logics that other researchers and practitioners can test and adapt within their own media systems.

Journalism in an Era of Fragmented Attention

Ultimately, this study contributes to ongoing debates about the future of journalism in a mobile and fragmented media environment. It shows that disengagement among young people is not inevitable: they are still willing to invest attention, but only when content meets them halfway visually, emotionally, and intellectually. The challenge for educators and broadcasters is to embed the kinds of storytelling innovation tested here into everyday practice rather than keeping them at the margins in isolated projects. Recent work on young adults and the future of news (Pew Research Center, 2024) similarly suggests that renewing journalism's relevance will depend less on persuading young people to return to legacy channels and more on redesigning formats and workflows around the ways they already move through information. For practitioners and teachers, the practical task is to keep testing, observing, and refining formats so that public-interest journalism remains both recognizably serious and realistically watchable for the Visual Generation.

Conclusion

This project addressed a constant challenge in contemporary journalism: younger audiences still trust television, yet rarely meet it on its own terms. By combining national survey data, content analysis, experimental video production, and focus-group testing with Croatian viewers aged 18–25, the study identified a consistent set of cues that shape how the Visual Generation encounters, evaluates, and uses television news.

The findings refine existing work on news engagement and constructive journalism by specifying a hierarchy of engagement cues for television and online video. Young viewers in this study responded most positively to formats that (a) maintained an informative rather than sensational tone; (b) offered visual explanations that made complex issues quickly understandable; (c) used pacing and structure adapted to feed-based, mobile viewing; (d) featured protagonists with clear and visible agency; and (e) embedded constructive elements that show credible actions and options.

On the practical and pedagogical side, the PROJECT Y live lab shows that journalism education can function as a testing ground for format innovation. When students prototype paired versions of stories, articulate their design choices, and observe real audiences reacting to their work, they learn to treat visuals, pacing, and character construction as integral parts of journalistic judgement rather than as optional extras. The collaboration with a public-service broadcaster indicates that this process can generate insights that are directly relevant for professional newsrooms as well as for academic debate.

Although the study is grounded in one national context and a specific set of topics, its design logic is transferable. By pairing controlled changes in audiovisual form with systematic audience feedback, other institutions can build their own evidence on how to align public-interest journalism with the viewing habits of younger audiences. In sum, this study provides both theoretical insight and practical guidance for those seeking to renew journalism's social contract with younger audiences—the implicit expectation that news will inform them in ways that enable meaningful participation in public life. It confirms that attention is not dead, but earned; that trust is not given, but built through credible form and substance; and that confidence in journalism can be renewed when stories are told in ways that feel relevant, understandable and emotionally fair to those watching. The Visual Generation is watching—but only if journalism learns to look, and speak, their language.

Footnotes

Funding

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

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Dejan Oblak

Notes

Author Biography

Dejan Oblak is a teaching and research assistant in the Department of Journalism and Media Production at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, and a doctoral candidate in Information and Communication Sciences at the University's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Drawing on more than a decade of professional experience in broadcast and digital media, his research interests are innovations in multimedia storytelling, with a focus on emerging formats.

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