The ABC recognises the need to increase its digital output to gain younger audiences, but there’s emerging evidence that it and other outlets must change the way they present news content if they want to win over young audiences.
Writing in a recent blog, Alex Fein said that qualitative and quantitative data is increasingly showing that young people struggle to find information that is relevant to their lives in news broadcasts.
“What they mean is that most editorial perspectives are thoroughly divorced from their lived experience - focusing on power horse races, the interests and perspectives of the wealthy and powerful, and only offering platforms to those who already have them”.
“They see a lot of media as a small group of people largely talking to themselves.”
Young people are also switching off news programs because there is too much focus on negative content which is having an impact on their mental health.
Fein says while it is hard to picture how to report news “without touching on the bleak stuff”, new media outfits such as Crooked Media in the US are showing that this can be done.
Discussing the issue of trust in media, Fein also says that many young people will now read a news item because they trust the person in their social networks who has shared the link – rather than the news organisation that produced the information.
“News items are read by people in an entirely new context: through the validation of their social networks. People in their social networks will link to an article, thus conferring some (limited) legitimacy to the item on its own.
And this is key: the item’s legitimacy is fast becoming less the product of the source publication and far more a product of who inside the social network has recommended it”.
Fein says that the growth of news podcasts and online news sharing services such as The Daily Aus shows the need for new ways to gain and maintain audience share.
“What these outlets have in common is understanding the central importance of leveraging the trust that social network recommendation affords them”.
In its recently announced five year plan, the ABC says that a major focus of its work is now creating content for audiences “who prefer social media and other third-party platforms”.
“This will ensure we provide relevant content, in engaging formats, for younger audiences, especially those who do not use traditional broadcast services.”
ABC Friends Victoria is also exploring this issue in its ABC Friends NewGen Initiative. This exciting project aims to build awareness of the need for, and importance of, public broadcasting, and to build support for the ABC among 18-35 year olds.
The project has commissioned a Youth Engagement and Social Media Officer, and will convene a NewGen Reference Group of young people to help drive the initiative. We’ll keep you posted in future newsletters.
Sophie Arnold
E-news Editor
ABC Friends