Teen Media Consumption

Teen Media Consumption 

How does the consumption of different media influence teens’ perception of global events?

K. Bauer

Introduction

Technological consumption has grown exponentially in the past twenty years. With the development of handheld technology, access to information and the world wide web has become easier. According to a 2019 study, American teenagers, aged 13 to 19, spend over seven hours on personal devices for recreational usage daily [Rogers, 2019]. This time spent in front of screens includes time on social media, watching television, or socializing with friends and excludes time spent using technology in order to complete schoolwork. Overall, teenagers report that they spend most of their screen time “just passing time”1, with connecting to others coming in second as a reason to spend time on their phones [Schaeffer, 2019]. 

Fig 1: Pew Research study finding top reasons for teenage phone usage 

While this increase in technology has left many researchers looking into the negative influences that screen time has on teenagers, technology has changed the spread of news completely. From the development of radio news to television to now, the handheld phone, the quick spread of news has changed rapidly as the boom of personal devices spreads across the world. 

Literature Review

Thanks to this rapid increase in technological advancements over the past one hundred years, news has become an easily accessed source of information. This increase has created a source of political and social power, especially through social media. For example, in 2001, the Philipines put their president up for an impeachment trial. Loyalist congressmen voted to put aside evidence that would have directly proved the corruption of their president, but over the course of almost seven million text messages, his fate was determined by a series of protestors organizing in order to make sure that the evidence would be used within the trial [Foreign Affairs, 2011]. This use of social media as a coordinating tool for protests and other political movements has been prevalent within the past 20 years. On the social media platform Instagram, one can view the protest movement March For Our Lives with over three hundred thousand followers. March For Our Lives is a movement hosting events around America to discuss safety reform within public and private schools. It sprang from the survivors of the Parkland shooting and their passion for reform [March For Our Lives, 2020]. Social media has created a system of rapid-fire information that can be used to create new movements across the country. 

From the Philippino impeachment movement to current protests such as the March For Our Lives series, social media has proved to be a source of information not to be taken lightly. In a recent U.S. survey, teenagers polled that roughly 54% of them receive their information from social media, such as Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat [Common Sense Media, 2019]. Through these different platforms, accounts can provide information on news and global events quickly and efficiently, but there is also a large amount of cyber propaganda, often referred to as “fake news” being spread through social media, as well. Cyber propaganda is defined as sensational stories meant to infringe upon another person or company and shed a negative light on them [Information Security Awareness, n.d.]. Fake news is easily spotted to the educated eye by looking at the source and credibility that the account holds, but often people spread information without originally fact-checking it. This can promote hysteria throughout news sources as teenagers on social media share information without factual grounding. During the 2016 United States presidential election, the term “fake news” became one in frequent use. While the concept of fake news has been in the media since the spread of news began, technology and social media have made it so that falsified information becomes easy to spread [Information Security Awareness, n.d.]. 

As social media has been determined to be the biggest contender for news within the teen demographic, the question of “why” begins to arise. In a 2019 study, teens polled that they would prefer to view news in a visual format rather than reading information at 64% [Information Security Awareness; Goswami, 2018]. Social media is a more selective news source, as well, as teens can choose specific accounts about niche interests to follow rather than having to sort through a collection of information. Not only this, but the study found that teenagers are more likely to identify as moderate or Democrats, but they choose to view news that does not align with their own views in order to see what the opposing side has to say. This characteristic was seen in almost half the people who answered the poll [Common Sense Media, 2019]. This shows that even though social media has given people an option to filter through the news for specific views, teenagers still choose to view both sides of the story in order to find unbiased sources of news with factual information. 

Although social media is the largest source of news for teenagers, many choose to use other sources, as well. Polling second for the highest source of news amongst teenagers is word of mouth from friends or family [What Are Teens’ Primary News Sources, 2017]. This source of news can hold personal bias as the teen would only hear about news from the interpretation of their friends and family rather than creating their own personal opinion on the subject matter, thus making it difficult to determine the accuracy of any news that has been spread through word of mouth. 

Most people remember playing the game “telephone” or one of a different alias when they were young. If one does not have familiarity, it can be very quickly explained. The person at the head of the table or the designated “host” thinks of a sentence and tells the person next to them. As the sentence is whispered around the table, it is morphed away from its originality and into a new sentence with a different meaning than before [Bhola, 2019]. This analogy can be used to show how word of mouth news can be innocently shaped from one idea into another. It can be easily morphed without a second thought, from the inaccurate memories or just the misinterpretation of what is being said, changes can be made to the information that is being spread. 

The third-ranking source of news amongst teens in the United States is through television-broadcasted news sources [What Are Teens’ Primary News Sources, 2017].  Television news is often more rated on bias. This bias is based off of the news source itself rather than judging each individual host of the night and their beliefs on the topics at hand. Of course, when the news is judged more on the station, people tend to watch news that is aligned with their political beliefs. In a survey done in 2015, 60% of Fox News viewers stated that they identify as conservative, an unproportionate amount in comparison to other news sources [Gramlich, 2020]. In the realm of United States television news, most people can identify sources that lean more Democrat or Republican. CNN is often identified as a Democrat source, and Fox is identified as a Republican news source. This third-ranking news source only had 17% of teenagers respond that it is their most-used source during weekly viewing [What Are Teens’ Primary News Sources, 2017]. 

At 16%, teenagers use news sources through the internet as their next largest source of weekly news [What Are Teens’ Primary News Sources, 2017]. This includes journal articles from sources also found on television, such as CNN and Fox News, and strictly journal sites as well, such as Huffington Post and Washington Post. These sources have the same bias issue as television, though, as they present bias based off of the website rather than by each article. While it still is easily determined when articles have a bias, people tend to stick with sources that align with their personal views. 

In a study by Scott Reid, Reid determined that personal bias against issues has to do with the readers’ personal self-categorization [Stray, 2012]. Self-categorization happens when a person identifies themselves with a specific group. The self-categorization theory (SCT) is a psychological theory of when and how people will identify as a group rather than an individual [Turner, 2012]. This theory is the psychological difference between “I” and “we”. Often, personal bias comes from identifying with the “we” that is being targeted within the news. To relate back to earlier, high school teens can often feel stress or sadness over the Parkland shooting because they can directly relate to the situation of being in a public school. It changes the individual mindset from “I” to “we” as they think about being in a situation similar to that.

While self-categorization can directly cause individual bias, it can also lead to an event called the hostile media effect. The hostile media effect is an event studied by Scott Reid. In his studies, he found that individuals with specific self-categorization groups took neutral media and interpreted it as hostile against the group they identify with [Reid, 2012]. Reid performed a series of experiments on United States students in order to prove the existence of the hostile media effect, but the first page was the most important in determining the results of the experiment. Reid created three different documents, each with a separate first page that illustrated one of three differing views. On the first of the three Reid made the survey seem as though it was a general media influence survey, on the second he began with discussing polarized political views and how media is influenced by that, and on the third, he wrote about globalization and the United State’s view of Arab countries [Stray, 2012].  These three questionnaires, although all having the same questions listed, scored differently as people viewed bias in surveys they were led to believe had bias in them, thus proving the existence of the hostile media effect. The hostile media effect can cause people to choose sources that they believe align with their views, whether they do or not. 

Based on the information provided, one can see why social media would be a probable top choice for news amongst the new generation. Social media provides an unbiased source of information through easy access to multiple sources. Social media provides a quick and easy way to get information, as long as the viewer is aware of the precautions when looking out for cyber propaganda. While social media is the main source for teenagers, they do use multiple platforms to consume news information. This brings up how different sources directly pertain to teenage perception. How does the consumption of different media influence teens’ perception of global events?

Methodology 

In deciphering how American teenagers in the modern age are influenced by different media sources, a study across the country must take place. A survey group of roughly one hundred high school students aged fourteen to nineteen in the United States is needed in order to complete the survey accurately. Looking at this specific age grouping will help to find key suspects. Going any younger will be insufficient as they do not understand or have access to the information that they will be asked to answer upon. If one picks a group any older they are losing the teenage mindset and looking at people transitioning into adulthood. Using a range of one hundred will give accurate information that is not indecipherable on an individual basis. Analyzing individual responses is important in order to determine which portions of the survey have the notion to become part of self-categorization rather than an individual mindset. While self-categorization is easily found within a survey discussing bias, the survey portrays more factual information that is based on knowledge rather than opinion.

In making the survey questions, one must focus on important global events that pertain directly to the people being surveyed. This is a necessity as teenagers will be more likely to know questions about the school system rather than about retirement benefits. In choosing global events, the ones chosen for this specific survey were on youth homelessness, teenage pregnancy, free lunch and food stamp programs, and women’s health and family planning. In order to determine which questions participate in bias, there must be certain control questions that are less likely to be missed than others but hold a chance for self-categorization to happen. 

Once the survey has been organized into sections based on different global events, one may begin dispersing it into schools in order to get a demographic range back. 

Global Events and Their Importance 

In determining global events and their relevancy to the survey and the study in general, one may look at top headlines or research what is currently occurring within the world. In the survey at hand, the surveyor steered away from political ideologies and rather looked at events affecting specific demographics of people of the ages fourteen to nineteen. This survey does not look directly at respondent bias but rather at the education of teenagers based on their differing media consumption so it stayed towards factual information rather than information that could have a stronger bias. As stated earlier, respondents did have a choice of whether or not to continue the survey when more sensitive topics were discussed, but all questions were based on factual information found from government websites or other specialized organizations in order to make sure of the credibility of the source. One must determine the importance of questions while considering the demographic of the respondents as well as the importance of global events during the time period at hand. 

Key Factors of Individual Mindset 

When analyzing individual survey responses, one may be interested in creating a form or other large database to organize answers. Each answer must be organized into different categories, starting with what form of media they use. After determining the form of media, direct sources must be organized into groups. At the beginning of the survey, each individual had to rate their knowledge of news and global media in order to see the reflection of confidence against correct answers. While their rating did not directly correlate with how many answers were scored correctly, this look into the mind of the individual can reflect their general confidence on the subject of news as an entirety. This judgment is an important aspect of the overall survey as it gives the respondent a moment to reflect on their personal knowledge. Continuing through the survey, each individual had fourteen questions to answer, all being multiple choice or true or false. Before the last section regarding women’s health and family planning, the respondents had the opportunity to finish the survey and not continue on. Out of a demographic range of one hundred, ten people decided to finish the survey and not continue on. This choice was given as an option to exit before questions regarding more sensitive subjects were asked. 

Giving specific, controlled choices to individuals is an important factor of the survey as it provides people choices and allows them to determine their own beliefs and perspectives during the survey. 

Analyzing Individual Responses 

In analyzing individual responses in order to determine the level of knowledge from different sources, one may look at the form earlier organized. Looking at each individual respondent and the questions that they scored correctly or incorrectly on can determine how different forms of news reflect upon teen knowledge on these topics. Since this individual analysis is important to determine how media influence impacts general knowledge, keeping a smaller demographic is important rather than making it a widespread study. Keeping smaller groups will also make it easier to ensure that noticing self-categorization will happen. 

Analyzing Responses as a Whole 

Outside of individual responses, analyzing overall responses is important in determining which questions were not applicable to the demographic as they were highly missed. When looking at response feedback, one may notice that certain questions had lower overall scoring than others. For example, very specific statistical questions may be higher missed than questions with general information, as teens have more confidence in their answers regarding information that can be more related to current situations rather than distant mathematical information. The relevance of the questions can also play a leading role in the overall results. If the survey is taking place in only one area of the United States,  for example, the southeast, asking about occurrences happening in another country or across the country will not be as relevant to the area and lose accurate feedback. 

Discussing Sensitive Topics 

When asking questions about issues that may be more sensitive to the youth, ensure a right of privacy by making the survey entirely anonymous. Not only this but make sure that they have options to stay away from topics that they may be uncomfortable discussing by making them not a necessity to the analysis of the paper in its entirety. Privacy is one of the most important aspects of this survey as it makes the respondent more comfortable in answering questions that may directly affect them. 

Results 

As determined earlier, social media is the most popular source of news for the teenage demographic. When respondents had the choice to judge their own personal knowledge of the news, forty percent chose to rate themselves a three out of five while another forty percent chose to rate themselves a four out of five, stating that most people prefer to think of themselves with an average or above-average knowledge of the news and other global events. Out of ninety-six eligible respondents, forty-five stated that social media is their most-used platform to view news on a weekly basis. The respondents stated that their most-used platform amongst social media is Instagram. 

Out of the forty-five respondents who stated that social media is their most-used platform, thirty-nine stated that Instagram is their most-used direct source. Thirty-two respondents who chose social media scored more than half of the questions correct, scoring two points higher than the average score. 

The overall average score on the survey was 7.42, the median score is a seven. The lowest score tallied as a three and the highest was an eleven. Only one person scored a three and only one scored an eleven, showing that those two scores were very difficult to achieve. 

The questions that were missed the most all had to do with race. Two frequently missed questions had to do with people of the Latino/a/x ethnicity regarding teen pregnancy and youth homelessness, respectively. 

The section with the lowest scoring overall was regarding food stamps and free lunch. These questions were based on American public school systems and their food benefit programs nationally. 

Regarding the section on family planning, ten respondents chose to omit from this section, while eighty-six chose to continue. This section held three questions, the first one referring to how many people choose to get late-term abortions, the second discussing why people choose to get late-term abortions and the third discussing how teenagers choose to involve their parents in their choices over their pregnancy. While the overall scores in this section showed that people did have a general knowledge of family planning in America, teenagers who chose the option of watching television news did score lower than teens who consume news through social media, specifically teens who chose options leaning more towards conservative ideals. The respondents who chose to opt-out of this section did not have any specific ideals or scoring in common. 

Overall, three main sources were determined to be used by teenagers most often, social media, online newspapers, and television. 86% of teens who said that they use social media as their main source scored over fifty percent on the survey, in comparison to 81% for online newspapers and 66% percent for television. This proves that social media, although being followed closely by online newspapers, is the most efficient and high-scoring option for a news source in the modern age.