Young People and News: A Systematic Literature Review

ABSTRACT

Exploring how young people engage with, share, and are influenced by news has long captivated academic interest. It is crucial for comprehending how young people are informed and develop critical thinking skills amid evolving media landscapes, and for predicting potential impacts on the industry and democracy. Given the increasing complexity of the news field, this paper conducts a systematic literature review from 2010 to 2022, focusing on journals within SCImago’s top 100 list for journalism, media, and communication. The review categorises the 232 academic papers based on origin, methods, and types of youth studied. First, this article systematises geographical origin, methods used, ages and types of youth studied in the 232 academic papers comprising the final sample. Second, it summarises key findings concerning how the most cited papers frame “youth” and “news”. Last, the article concludes by pointing out research gaps and possible future challenges. The study reveals that user studies are prominent, while production studies on news media reaching young people are scarce. There is a strong Western bias in current research, with a prevalence of U.S. college student survey studies. The terms “youth” and “news” lack in-depth exploration. This article discusses challenges arising from these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Audience studies
• news use
• young audiences
• social media
• news habits
• journalism
• systematic literature review

Introduction

How news is produced, consumed, theorised, and conceptualised is of pivotal concern for journalism and media scholars, as well as for the industry and wider society. An extensive number of studies have explored how technological, economic, cultural, and societal factors have impacted what we perceive as news, how and by whom news is produced, news use and engagement among different audience groups, and the effects news use has on individuals and societies. A particular concern in this regard, shared by the scholarly community and the media industry, is to understand news in the context of young people.

The digital transformation has intensified the interest for conceptualising this audience group. They have been referred to as “digital natives” (Prensky 2001), “global natives” (Lüders and Sundet 2022), or through generation labels (like Generation X and Y) assuming how this group of people have something in common (Andersen et al. 2020; Bolin 2017). Understanding this demographic and how news is tailored towards these audiences, is crucial, not just for current insights but also for anticipating the future as young individuals transition into adulthood. Identifying trends, shifts, and potential disruptions in news production and consumption by young people across hybrid and digital media systems, along with varying political and cultural contexts, can provide valuable economic foresight for the news industry trying to reach this audience group. Moreover, changing structural conditions and production environments, producer-consumer relations, and audience patterns also have societal implications as news is inherently linked to democracy.

In this article, we are concerned with what characterises the academic interest, and consequently the knowledge we have from studies on news and youth. We argue that it is important to gain an overview of the research field as it enables the assessment of our knowledge’s foundation, identifies research gaps, and unveils potential trends and biases. Examining a broad spectrum of scholarly activity reveals the scientific perspectives applied, favoured topics, and the extent to which our knowledge is rooted in specific political and cultural contexts. Addressing these disparities is vital in the rapidly evolving digital landscape, marked by an abundance of news sources, the growing influence of social media, and shifting audience behaviours. As such, our study is positioned within wider scholarly concerns about the development of news in a time marked by deep structural changes in the hybrid media information landscape (Chadwick 2017; Edgerly and Vraga 2020; Ekström and Westlund 2019).

The study is guided by the following research questions:

RQ1: What characterises the geographical focus of studies on youth and news?

RQ2: Which methods are applied when scholars study youth and news?

RQ3: What characterises the “youth” studied in terms of their age, educational level, and nationality?

RQ4: How are “youth” and “news” framed within this strand of research?

To answer these research questions, we have conducted a broad systematic literature review. Systematic reviews aim to present an overall picture of evidence in a topic area, guiding future research (Petticrew and Roberts 2008), and identifying research gaps. Literature reviews, especially systematic ones, illuminate knowledge construction, revealing biases in geographical, age, and preference focuses (Siddaway, Wood, and Hedges 2019). Methodologically, the study rests on a quantitative content analysis, examining 232 academic articles published in the 100 top-ranked academic journals in journalism and media and communication between 2010 and 2022, identifying patterns related to geography, method, and the kind of youth that is given attention, as well as a qualitative analysis of the most cited papers with the aim of critically examining how news and youth are framed.

The study is inspired by prior literature reviews concerning news and journalism in varying ways. We draw insights from previous overviews of news production patterns (Engelke 2019; Heravi et al. 2022; López-García et al. 2018; Mitchelstein and Boczkowski 2009), social media news selection (Anter 2023), news sharing (Kümpel, Karnowski, and Keyling 2015), innovation (Belair-Gagnon and Steinke 2020), and science journalism in the global south (Nguyen and Tran 2019). No prior systematic literature review, however, has specifically addressed the intersection between young people and news, except for Fillol and Pereira’s analysis of 146 titles and abstracts in the communication field (2020), investigating the relationship between children, young people, and news. Their sample (N = 146) revealed an overrepresentation of reception and representation studies, with scarce attention given to production studies. Additionally, they identified a significant dominance of U.S.-centric research, constituting 50% of the studies. Building upon this groundwork, our study expands the scope by encompassing a broader range of journals and age groups.

The categorisation of “youth” is fluid, with researchers varying in their distinctions between child, youth, young adult, and adult. Some define anyone below 18 as a child, while others set the boundary at puberty or the teenage years. In this study, we adopt a broad perspective on “youth” and “young people”, using these terms interchangeably. Our study focuses on ages 13–23. This range aligns with the legal age for most social media use, typically set at around 13 years. In the current sample, this age group often corresponds with “Generation Z”, encompassing individuals born from the mid-to-late 1990s to the early 2010s. Gen Z is characterised by extensive digital exposure and individualistic news consumption, often referred to as “digital natives” without memories of the pre-internet age (Kalogeropoulos 2019). For this group, the role of news is primarily individualistic, focusing on what news can offer them as individuals rather than news benefitting society as a whole (Galan et al. 2019). The studied period represents a pivotal moment for both the industry and scholars, providing motivation for the study.

The analysis reveals five key trends. Firstly, most studies concentrate on examining media habits and the political dimensions of news consumption, with limited attention given to news production for this audience group. Secondly, studies rely heavily on survey methods and student samples, resulting in a limited understanding of other sociodemographic groups of young people. Thirdly, the geographical focus of studies on youth and news primarily centres on the U.S. and Europe, highlighting a Western-centric bias. Fourth, there is a robust normative stance in the most cited articles advocating that youth should engage with news both presently and as future citizens. Lastly, the concept of news is rarely problematised, indicating a prevailing traditional and commonsensical scholarly understanding of news.

Background

Due to the democratic significance of reliable news and an informed citizenship, scholars have been eager to identify how news is understood and conceptualised, how news is produced and consumed, how it is visualised and constructed, and the societal and individual effects of news (Clark and Marchi 2017; Nielsen and Ganter 2022; Pavlik et al. 2019; Swart, Peters, and Broersma 2017; Westlund and Färdigh 2015). In light of digitalisation that has radically altered the structural conditions for news, researchers have explored the specificities of digital journalism theoretically, conceptually, and empirically, identifying forces of stability and change (Ferrucci and Kuhn 2022; Harcup and O'Neill 2001; Ryfe 2009; Shoemaker and Reese 2014). In our study, we are, among other topics, concerned with the geographical scope and methods of research on youth and news. In general, media and journalism studies have a strong Western bias, which has been criticised by several authors (Hanitzsch 2019; Hanusch and Vos 2020). There is a strong possibility that this is also the case for research on youth and news. Furthermore, the question of methods is interesting, because it informs us about the kind of data our knowledge rests on and the broader research traditions the studies are engaged with, including production studies, content analysis and audience and effect studies.

Production studies rooted in the necessity for comprehensive qualitative examinations of production cultures—encompassing ethnography and qualitative interviews—have a long-standing history. From early media research (Tuchman 1978; White 1950) to more recent contributions (Belair-Gagnon 2015; Usher 2014), these studies have elucidated the impact of structural conditions and individual factors on news production and innovation. Over the last decades, researchers have focused on how digitalisation, particularly through social media, influences news production, innovation prospects, and power dynamics between journalism and social media platforms (Van Dijck and Poell 2013). A related strand of research scrutinises a production culture influenced by audience engagement through clicks, likes, and shares, marking the digitalisation of journalism and the advent of measuring tools (Groot Kormelink and Costera Meijer 2017). In our study, we are also interested in examining whether in-depth studies of production aimed at youth are prevalent. This part of our investigation aims to illuminate whether and how the news industry caters to this specific audience group.

Content analysis is concerned with how news is presented, structured, and visualised, valuable to identify patterns, while qualitative methods are useful to illuminate linguistics, narratives, frames, and visual elements in news. Researchers have been concerned with mapping news topics, how news about particular topics are framed (D'Angelo and Kuypers 2010; Sjøvaag and Stavelin 2012), news as discourse (Bednarek and Caple 2014; Van Dijk 1988 (2009)), news narratives (Neiger and Tenenboim-Weinblatt 2016) and sources in news (Thorbjørnsrud and Ustad Figenschou 2016; Tiffen et al. 2014). Scholars have explored platforms such as TikTok (Vázquez-Herrero, Negreira-Rey, and López-García 2022), Facebook (Hågvar 2019), Instagram (Hermida and Mellado 2020; Maares and Hanusch 2020), Snapchat (Røsok-Dahl and Olsen 2024) and WhatsApp (Gil de Zúñiga, Ardèvol-Abreu, and Casero-Ripollés 2021; Herrero-Diz, Conde-Jiménez, and Reyes de Cózar 2020), some looking at content, others triangulating content analysis with other methods. Moreover, numerous studies have explored audience interactions with news through comments sections and social media, analysing text (Craft, Vos, and David Wolfgang 2016; Erjavec and Kovačič 2012). During the last decade, topic modelling and sentiment analysis have become more present, identifying hidden semantic patterns in large text corpuses (Jacobi, van Atteveldt, and Welbers 2016). In our study, we also explore the instances where content analysis is applied to study news for youth, because it gives insight into the scholarly attention to language, narratives, frames, and visuals for content aimed at youth.

In the past decade, journalism studies shifted towards an “audience turn”, using surveys, experiments, and qualitative methods to analyse audience behaviours, explore the impact of news consumption on political aspects, knowledge, and emotions, and gain insights into decision-making across diverse audience groups (Costera Meijer 2019, 2020; Peters et al. 2022; Swart et al. 2022). A long strand of research has furthermore focused on how news use in particular is linked to trust/distrust (Fletcher and Park 2017; Strömbäck et al. 2020), and connection/disconnection with the news media (Ytre-Arne and Moe 2018). Studies have illuminated generational gaps related to news use, repertoires, and political trust (Ohme 2019), identifying young people as a disloyal audience segment. Others have documented how young people—growing up in digital environments—understand and experience news, and their reluctance to pay for content (Fletcher and Nielsen 2017; Peters et al. 2022). Furthermore, news avoidance has been the focus of many studies, discussing the democratic implications of such deliberate or undeliberate behaviour (Aharoni, Kligler-Vilenchik, and Tenenboim-Weinblatt 2021; Villi et al. 2022). The research on news and young people is broad and draws from various theoretical and methodological traditions. Our ambition is to say something about how youth is studied methodologically and what kind of youth is studied injournalism and media and communication research.

Finally, digital transitions and developments in the field have opened up discussions concerning what journalism and news is, and who has authority and legitimacy to be reliable actors in the media field in hybrid media environments (Carlson 2017; Cortesi and Gasser 2015; Eldridge 2019). Youth, as an audience group, represent an interesting line of inquiry in this context, because young people’s knowledge of and expectations for specific media content and genres, as well as their (dis)loyal and somewhat unpredictable behaviour, represent a possibility to critically engage with what news is for specific groups and what it may become, as well as how audience patterns are transforming (Clark and Marchi 2017; Edgerly and Vraga 2019; Kümpel 2020; Peters et al. 2022). Understanding youth is vital for both researchers and industries to comprehend how news evolves—an undertaking marked by hope, confusion, and occasional despair about the future, and in our study, we want to shed light on how studies have engaged with the news concept. Hereafter, we present our systematic review, followed by key takeaways, finally concluding with suggestions for future research.

Systematic Literature Review

This study methodologically analyses scholarly articles in communication, media, and journalism from 2010 to 2022. We use quantitative and qualitative content analysis, focusing on peer-reviewed international journals in the top 100 SCImago-ranking in communications.¹ The chosen period encompasses the full integration of social media and smartphones into the media consumption of today’s youth. Conducting a systematic literature review is demanding and time-intensive (Carver et al. 2013). To be a valid research methodology, it is crucial to adhere to specific steps for accuracy, precision, and trustworthiness (Petticrew and Roberts 2006; Snyder 2019). A non-systematic approach may result in a biased selection of the researcher’s preferred studies (Petticrew and Roberts 2008, 6). This involves critical considerations in data collection and analysis, encompassing the presentation of sampling, screening, and coding processes. Adhering to the PRISMA checklist, emphasising transparency (Page et al. 2021), we outline the search strategy, sampling and exclusion processes and several rounds of coding. Initial testing included comprehensive searches across scientific databases, peer-reviewed journals, books, conference papers, and “grey literature”. More than 5300 studies were identified, and a narrower scope had to be selected. Both SCOPUS and Web of Science were tested, applying the search string² to the top 100 journals (SCImago), and SCOPUS was chosen as it contained all relevant, ranked journals. Searching across databases can lead to methodological problems (Wanyama, McQuaid, and Kittler 2022). They (Wanyama, McQuaid, and Kittler 2022) suggest contacting leading scholars in the field for clarification, which we did (N = 10), adding a few journals based on their recommendations.³ Selecting search terms is a subjective choice, and individual search terms may lack precision in pinpointing relevant content (Lacy et al. 2015). University librarians with expertise in literature reviews helped refine the search terms. All possible synonyms were linked with Boolean terms such as AND/OR. The search in SCOPUS yielded 589 articles across 32 journals. After this, exclusion criteria were applied to make sure the articles were relevant to our study (Table 1).

Table 1. Exclusion criteria.

Question component	Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Age	Studies including teenagers and young adults aged 13–23 years old	Studies only focusing on children (below age 13) or only adults above 23 years of age, with no mention of young people between 13–23 years old.
Youth focus	Studies related to news and youth. News use, effect of news related to youth, news production related to youth or news content analysed must play a significant role in the paper.	Studies about the general population, with youth not being mentioned as an important point in the study. Studies about journalism students and how they learn journalism or work in newsrooms. Studies focusing on journalists in general, with no mention of how they work to reach youth with news.
Theme/background	Study belonging to the fields of communication/journalism/media.	Studies focusing solely on other fields such as medicine, psychology, education, or business but with no clear mention of the fields of communication / journalism/media/news. Example: Watching television news and crashing a car afterwards.
Keywords/abstract	Relevant studies involving synonyms for teen/adolescent/youth/young adults.	Studies that were automatically included in the search because of irrelevant word combinations. Examples: “Young democracy” or “minor problem”, “minor felony”—in title, abstract or keywords—but with no relevance to youth and news.

The exclusion criteria ensured the removal of articles not focusing on young people and news. For instance, studies addressing youth and general media use without a focus on news, such as teenagers using YouTube or Instagram, for non-news purposes were excluded. Additionally, articles concerning the general population’s news use without specific mention of young people were removed. Following this process, the final sample (N = 232, see Table S1)⁴ originated from 29 journals (see Table 2). The three journals most frequently publishing studies about young people and news were Journalism Studies (n = 20), Journalism (n = 18), and New Media and Society (n = 17). The coding process for the 232 articles occurred through multiple steps involving both authors (see Table 3). Following rigorous testing, the final codebook was established. To ensure reliability, the second author randomly coded 10% of the material, selected by Chat GPT, and the intercoder reliability was deemed acceptable (see Table 4).

Table 2. Articles about youth and news, per journal (N = 232).

Table 3. Variables.

VARIABLE	VALUE
Age	All ages from 13 to 23
Education level (if applicable)	High school or lower, University/college, All population, NA (Not applicable)
Countries	All countries in the world—unique number
Method	Single or mixed
Methods used	Interview Survey Content analysis User data Ethnography/observation Focus group Experimental Other (all studies not fitting into the above variables)

Table 4. Inter coder reliability.

	Cohens Kappa
Country of origin	1
Interview	0,8636
Media diaries	1
User data	1
Content analysis	1
Ethnography	1
Survey	0,9125
Focus group	0,8636
Age	1

The qualitative analysis aimed to thoroughly explore how scholars have investigated youth and news, emphasising articles with over ten citations per year (calculated by dividing SCOPUS’ citation count as of October 2023 by number of years).⁵ This approach allows us to discern trends among the most impactful articles shaping the field. In addressing our research questions, we draw on Entman’s (1993) framing theory as a qualitative analytical tool. An inductive approach was used (Denzin et al. 2023), looking for problem definitions, causes, and possible remedies regarding youth and news. Both researchers read all the articles, identifying and discussing overarching frames and key tendencies in the qualitative material. Based on the initial coding, the authors re-read the texts engaging in a deeper exploration of normative positions, conceptualisations, and theoretical lenses applied in the articles.

Results

To answer the research questions, we will outline key insights from the quantitative analysis, encompassing geographical scope, methodological approaches, and youth characteristics, including age, education, and nationality, followed by an in-depth qualitative analysis, scrutinising the 37 most cited studies within the sample.

Geographical Scope

First, we address the question of geographical focus in the studies on youth and news. Of the 232 studies, only two did not state nationality specifically. These were either conceptual (Bengtsson and Johansson 2021) or based on global news organisations addressing youth via apps worldwide (Geniets 2016). 29 of all articles (N = 232) were comparative/cross-national. There was a clear Western bias in the material, and specifically the U.S. as well as a few countries in Europe dominate. As can be seen in Table 5, few studies originate in Latin America or Africa, which aligns with findings from other systematic reviews, such as the study of innovation in media and journalism studies (Belair-Gagnon and Steinke 2020). Studies from Asia are limited, but Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel and Japan are represented with four or more studies each. No single Latin American country is represented with four or more studies on youth and news in this sample. On the African continent, only South Africa is represented with more than three studies. Overall, our research highlights that studies on youth and news studies are predominantly led by the U.S. and a few European countries, reflecting broader patterns in media and journalism studies.

Table 5. Countries studies originated in represented in 232 articles. (Table showing countries represented in four articles or more.)

Methodological Approaches

Secondly, we wanted to explore the methods used in the articles, because it informs discussions about the kind of empirical data we have on this topic and the research tradition the studies engage with. We coded all methods used in the 232 articles, of which 38 studies used more than one method, leading to a total number of 270 methods (see Table 6).

Table 6. Methods used. N = 270 (total number of methods used in 232 articles)

First and foremost, there is an overweight of surveys (n = 130), followed by qualitative interviews (n = 51), content analysis (n = 30), focus groups (n = 27) , and ethnographic studies (n = 2). Looking closer at this material, we see that studies focusing on audiences are most prevalent, especially through surveys. More specifically, youth is surveyed or interviewed about media habits, news use or effect, with connection to political activity, voting and partaking in democracy, as we will address more closely in the qualitative part. In the studies using qualitative interviews and focus groups, there is also a strong tendency that they involve young audiences (rather than industry representatives), most prominently in the Netherlands (Bakker and de Vreese 2011; Groot Kormelink and Klein Gunnewiek 2021; Swart 2021, 2023). Our study confirms the last decades’ shift towards audience studies (Costera Meijer 2020), with a clear tendency that less attention is given to the exploration of content and the production of news for youth. Only two studies in the sample were based on ethnography: Manninen (2020) researched sourcing practices among young Finnish journalists and Marchi and Clark (2021) studied high school youth in a working-class neighbourhood in Boston.

Youth Characteristics

Addressing the next research question concerning what kind of youth are being studied, we coded for age. All articles that included age information (N = 191) were coded for ages between 13 and 23 (see Table 7). Studies based on content analysis, conceptual or theoretical studies, and production studies, were not relevant to this part of the analysis. Among these studies, there was a preference for older (18–23) over younger (13–17) participants in studies on youth and news which confirms previous studies indicating that research on youth often relies on knowledge about the older segment of youth.

Table 7. Ages represented in articles with an identifiable age n = 191 studies.

This may be because older youth are easier to access for researchers, but it is still important to acknowledge that studying different age groups may provide diverse insights.

Secondly, we address questions concerning education. For this analysis, we coded whether the young people studied were a part of the general population, or as youth from a university/college sample or as youth from a high school/other school samples or otherwise younger than university age (obligatory education).⁶ Our study shows that 38% (n = 75) of the studies on youth, stems from a university college sample. Considering that studies based on the general population (39%) probably also include youth from university, this number is most likely higher. To examine this further, we looked closer at the countries represented with the most studies that included a youth sample. Looking at the U.S. (n = 72), more than 57% (n = 41) of the studies were based on a university/college sample, 17 on the general population and 14 on youth below university/college age. In several instances, in the U.S., students were given credits to participate. Moving to the Netherlands (n = 23), the breakdown shows a very different pattern. Of these studies, ten were based on the general population, four were based on a university sample, and nine studied young people below university age. In the Swedish sample (n = 12), not a single study was from a university/college sample; eight were based on ages below university age, and four were based on the general population. Regarding Denmark (n = 9), seven of these studies were based on the general population, only one stemmed from a university sample, and a sole study was based on youth below university age. Belgium (n = 8) was represented with three studies based on the entire population, two on a university/college sample, and two investigating younger youth. Germany (n = 7) had five studies based on the entire population, one based on a university sample, and one study on younger youth. In summary, studies from the U.S. significantly influence the overall findings, notably increasing the prominence of student samples. This quantitative analysis reveals that the youth studied tend to be older, there is a pronounced Western bias, and the samples are frequently drawn from student populations—a point that will be further examined in the discussion.

Framing Youth and News

Continuing with the takeaways from the qualitative analysis, we delve into scholarly attention on “youth” and “news” by examining the 37 most frequently cited papers from 2010–2022 (see Table S2). A notable trend is the scarcity of studies addressing production-related questions, with Negreira-Rey, Vázquez-Herrero, and López-García (2022) being a notable exception, exploring how journalists adapt to TikTok as a publishing platform. Predominantly, the top-cited papers are audience-related studies based on surveys and qualitative interviews with young people. Regarding the origin of the 37 most cited studies, nine originate from the Netherlands, and seven are from the U.S. There were eight studies among the most cited which involved more than one country. In the subsequent analysis, we specifically explore how these studies frame “youth” and “news”, and how problem definitions, causes, and possible remedies are connected to the theoretical lenses and normative positions applied in these highly cited articles. There are two tendencies when it comes to how youth are studied and framed theoretically; as media users and as citizens.

Youth and News Use

Several of the most cited studies focus on different aspects of youth and news use, exploring user patterns, practices, tactics, and experiences, in general or during specific periods, for instance during the Covid-19 pandemic (Groot Kormelink and Klein Gunnewiek 2021). Scholarly attention is given to youth’s media repertoires (Edgerly et al. 2018; Peters et al. 2022), media habits (Antunovic, Parsons, and Cooke 2018) or news selection (Fletcher and Nielsen 2019), as well as willingness to pay for news (Fletcher and Nielsen 2017). There is an emphasis on youth’s multiple forms of information-seeking practices and everyday practices, as well as meaning making and knowledge (Peters et al. 2022) and motivation for using news in specific ways (Tamboer, Kleemans, and Daalmans 2020). A widespread problem definition in these articles is the potential negative consequences of young people not consuming news, or at least consuming less than older cohorts, due to the increasingly changing high-choice media environment and social media use. A key term discussed in this context is incidental exposure to news, which is the focus in several of the highly cited articles (Antunovic, Parsons, and Cooke 2018; Bergström and Jervelycke Belfrage 2018; Boczkowski, Mitchelstein, and Matassi 2018; Fletcher and Nielsen 2018; Swart and Broersma 2022).

Incidental news exposure is treated predominantly as a positive outcome (remedy) of social media use for these age groups, since they unintentionally come across news items they would have missed out on, something Groot Kormelink and Costera Meijer (2014) previously categorised as news snacking. Furthermore, opinion leaders and friends are identified as a prerequisite for keeping up with news on social media (Bergström and Jervelycke Belfrage 2018). In general, this line of research indicates that youth often do not actively seek news, but also that youth are not passive or ignorant. They, instead, obtain information in multiple ways through various channels. In this sample, accidental stumbling upon news via social media is predominantly seen as positive, which has been criticised by for example Kümpel (2020), who labels this the “Matthew Effect”, suggesting (relative) enrichment among users already interested in news and (relative) impoverishment among those with little or no interest in current affairs information. Another area of concern regarding media use is how youth experience news, including the emotional effect (Groot Kormelink and Klein Gunnewiek 2021). While the importance of news consumption is emphasised, several of these studies explore how youth react to these experiences, either by withdrawing or developing coping skills. Swart and Broersma (2022) for instance study the tactics youth use for evaluating the trustworthiness of news. They argue that it is important to approach youth and news by looking at their practices.

Youth and Political Participation

Studies examining youth as current and future citizens, particularly within the realm of political and civic engagement, are prominent in the material (Bakker and de Vreese 2011; Bosch 2017; Edgerly et al. 2018; Gil de Zúñiga, Ardèvol-Abreu, and Casero-Ripollés 2021; Holt et al. 2013; Kushin and Yamamoto 2010; Valenzuela, Arriagada, and Scherman 2012; Vermeer et al. 2021). Most derive from political communication and employ surveys, to measure knowledge, attitudes, and engagement forms (online/offline). Emphasising the importance of youth engaging with news to be active members of civil society and democracy, is a recurring frame in these studies. They connect news use and participation to social media use, exploring how new media technologies shape young people’s political socialisation, examining news as a part of broader social media behaviour (Bosch 2017; Gil de Zúñiga, Ardèvol-Abreu, and Casero-Ripollés 2021; Holt et al. 2013). A highly cited article related to political participation, by Bakker and de Vreese (2011), uses a national survey to explore how social media use and traditional media use impact political participation, documenting how the type of media has an impact. Other studies focus on specific platforms, like WhatsApp (Gil de Zúñiga, Ardèvol-Abreu, and Casero-Ripollés 2021; Vermeer et al. 2021), Facebook (Valenzuela, Arriagada, and Scherman 2012) or Twitter (Bosch 2017), examining how they function as platforms for political engagement. A highly cited article explores protest activity in Chile, emphasising the association between Facebook use and democratic engagement, measuring news consumption on social media among other dimensions (Valenzuela, Arriagada, and Scherman 2012). Likewise, another study examines college students’ online media use, including news, during the 2008 U.S. election (Kushin and Yamamoto 2010). The study found that attention to social media was not significantly related to political self-efficacy or involvement (Kushin and Yamamoto 2010).

In sum, there is a strong audience orientation in the most cited studies on news and youth that is normatively framed around the assumption that young people should and must engage with news. Consequently, scholars have been concerned with how and when youth are exposed to news and how news use is connected to political engagement. Social media is treated both as part of the problem and the solution, being the main source for news consumption and participation for this audience group. Notably, studies scrutinising the production of news for youth are limited, and more research is needed to address the strategies and practices of editorial news media to reach this group on social media platforms.

Framing News

Another interesting finding across the material is that the concept of “news” and how news should be understood in the context of youth, is seldom problematised. As such it functions as a common sensical term, being applied as a concept that is believed to have a shared meaning. This is interesting as there are likely differences between younger and older youths’ perceptions of news (Clark and Marchi 2017; Edgerly and Vraga 2019). In all research, there is a danger of the researcher and the object having differing understandings of the concept used, and this may be particularly the case when young people are involved.

Notable exceptions in our sample of top-cited papers are Peters et al. (2022) and Tamboer, Kleemans, and Daalmans (2020) both engaging qualitatively in such questions. Tamboer et al argue that there is too little knowledge about how youth define news, and what they think about (or do not think about) when they are asked about news. In their qualitative study, they explore in-depth how adolescents (between 12 and 16) define and evaluate news. They find that this group talks about news in a way that is similar to conventional understandings, emphasising something “new”, “truthful”, and “neutral” (813–814). This points to how youth are familiar with the term and that there is at least to some extent a shared sense of what news is. The study by Peters et al. (2022) looked at young people’s information repertoires combining interviews, Q-sort methodology, and think-aloud protocols, unpacking the complexities of how youth inform themselves, how news is perceived, and used across legacy media and social networks. They conclude that although audiences certainly no longer are understudied, de-centring and situating journalism by considering informational alternatives is taking longer to catch up. Our study supports this, finding just a few studies unpacking the complexity of what news is, what is perceived as important and “real” news, to this hard-to-reach audience group. We support the notion of researching news and how news is perceived and used on social media both from production, content, and audience perspectives.

Conclusions

This study explores the characteristics of scholarly research on news and young people (13–23 years old) in high-ranking, academic papers within the fields of media, communication, and journalism from 2010 to 2022. We have highlighted tendencies in the methods applied, characteristics of the youth studied, and how youth and news are framed. We have noted a strong normative framework emphasising the importance of young people paying attention to news, as evident throughout the studied material. One of the main takeaways from the study is the dominance of research on youth and news in a Western context, which, while not surprising, remains crucial. This mirrors previous studies, warning of the consequences of such biases in the scholarly community (Hanitzsch 2019; Hanusch and Vos 2020). We agree that a global perspective is needed for a better understanding youth and news. Scholars should expand the geographical scope to cultivate a more diverse knowledge base, while journal editors ought to make concerted efforts to incorporate studies from regions that are often underrepresented.

Additionally, this study highlights the prevalence of audience studies relying on surveys, and even more important, often limited to university/college students, specifically from the U.S. Such biases potentially distort perceptions of youth and news, given the often-privileged status of students. This bias can impact our insights into topics like news consumption, social media engagement, political participation, and voting. To achieve a holistic understanding of user habits and news’ democratic impact, it is imperative to include youth from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels. Relying solely on surveys with college samples may overlook crucial perspectives. In addition, surveys as a method entail a possible over-report regarding one’s own recall of media use, as shown by scholars comparing surveys to other methods examining media use, such as people meters (Prior 2009). In her study, Swart (2021) highlights a challenge in recruiting youth with diverse educational levels, resulting in an overrepresentation of participants with a bachelor’s degree or higher. This is potentially the main reason for the prevalence of college students in this literature review. We encourage scholars worldwide to pursue more diverse samples of young people, ensuring a comprehensive grasp of similarities, differences, and the multifaceted impact of news on their lives.

This study highlights a noteworthy deficiency in research precision, particularly in defining key terms like “youth” and “news”. We advocate for explicit age range specification, cautioning against reliance solely on “mean age” as a determinant. Many studies lack clarity in defining pivotal terms, including the ambiguous notion of “news”, warranting a more nuanced exploration of young individuals’ perceptions. We encourage scholars to explore what young individuals perceive when grappling with the definition of “news”, especially as the young generation might have a more blurred definition of “news” than previous generations (Swart 2023), encouraging studies into what news is for this group and how we can study it (Bengtsson and Johansson 2021).

Notably, this systematic literature review found a prevalence of audience studies but lacks insights into how news media innovates, changes, and adapts to reach youth. Echoing Anter’s (2023) findings, our study identifies a scarcity of ethnographic research, but also a lack of other research methods looking into news production processes for young audiences.

We strongly encourage scholars to contribute to filling this gap by focusing their studies on how news media in various ways try to reach young audiences with news, both through social media and in legacy media. Our study acknowledges limitations, such as the exclusion of valuable work from regional sources, language constraints (English only), and potential benefits from a more extensive historical context. By focusing on the top 100 journals in the SCImago ranking, significant research published in regional or national journals not included in this list is excluded from the scope. Including such studies could potentially yield a markedly different perspective.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratefulness to the anonymous reviewers and editor for providing valuable feedback. We would also like to thank members of the Digital Journalism Research Group at Oslo Metropolitan University for useful comments. We extend our gratitude to the scholars who assisted in identifying journals beyond the top 100 list, with special thanks to Steen Steensen and Oscar Westlund. The first author would like to thank Shelley Boulianne, Lynn Schofield Clark, and Jacob Ohme for valuable feedback in the initial stages.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=3315&area=3300&year=2022.

2 (SRCTITLE ((NAME OF JOURNAL INSERTED HERE)) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY ((youth* OR adolescen* OR “young” OR “young people” OR “young news user” OR “young adult*” OR child* OR minor OR minors OR kid OR kids OR preadoles* OR teen* OR boy* OR girl* OR underage* OR “under age*” OR juvenil* OR puber* OR prepuber* OR pubescen* OR prepubescen* OR preschool* OR ya OR schoolchild* OR student* OR millennial* OR “Gen Z” OR “Generation Z”)) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (journalism OR news OR “media habit” OR “preferred media” OR “preferred channel”)).

3 Added journals had recently been present on the top 100-SCImago-list but were not currently present as the list constantly changes.

4 The whole list with full details can be found here: https://figshare.com/s/e5e072208d0ec74d467d.

5 One article had 9.8 citations per year but was included due to the high relevance of the study and the fact that it passed the citation limit shortly after the initial calculation.

6 Six of the content analysis studies were combined with another method and are included in this investigation of youth groups.