ABOUT YOUNG NEWS CONSUMERS WHAT EVERY LIBRARIAN …€¦ · EARLY FINDINGS. 1. NEWS COMES FROM...

WHAT EVERY LIBRARIAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT YOUNG NEWS CONSUMERS

Alison J. Head, Ph.D.Director, Project Information LiteracyAmerican Library Association Annual

June 23, 2018 | New Orleans

IT'S THURSDAY

MORNING

Where will you get your news today?

THE MODERN NEWS CONSUMER (PEW, 2016)

N = 4,654

THE YOUNG NEWS CONSUMER (PEW, 2016)

N = 4,654

INFOSEEKING

PRACTICES FOR NEWS

How do today's students find news and how does news

find them?

MIXED METHODS STUDY

● Online survey (N = 6,047)

● Computational analysis (N = 932)

● Phone interviews (N = 40)

● "Way Forward" recommendations

● Open access report ~ Oct. 2018

● Support:

● ACRL

● Knight Foundation

● Harvard Graduate School of Education

N = 6,04911 US colleges; 6 high schools

EARLY FINDINGS

1. NEWS COMES FROM DISCUSSIONS,NOT ONLY FROM SOCIAL MEDIA

N = 6,049

“Talking is the hallmark of democracy

and the news makes people talk

about important issues. Who would

speak for the community and

marginalized groups if the news

wasn’t present?

-university student

2. SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE: BUT NEWS FROM SNAPCHAT?

N = 6,049

“Snapchat is my go-to news source. If

a headline catches my eye then I

might read the story. I don’t really

have a news habit, I just check

randomly throughout the day or if I

see a notification come through.

-university student

3. SELECTING NEWS THAT’SIMMEDIATE TO THEIR LIVES

N = 6,049

4. HIGHLY GENDER-SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES IN NEWS SHARING

N = 708 retweets

4. HIGHLY GENDER-SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES IN NEWS SHARING

N = 708 retweets

5. POLITICAL MEMES AS "NEWS"?

82%Followed memes in the past week

33%Shared memes in the past week

N = 6,049

“Political memes provide a humorous or

ironic fresh take on what’s going on...if

I can share something funny with

friends and make fun of what's going

on, that's nice and important — that’s

why I share.-university student

“Visuals and memes are the most dangerous vehicles of mis- and disinformation.

- Claire Wardle, First Draft

“Combating Information Disorder.” Keynote: Claire Wardle, First Draft, Shorenstein Center for Social Sciences Librarians Boot Camp, Tufts University, June 1, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/ybclklzc

REFRAMING CONTEXT AND MEANING

Satire Art

G7 Summit, June 11, 2018

“The moment that broke that broke the West...”Die Welt

“Others expect America to be their bank...”John Bolton, Natl. Security Advisor

A WAY FORWARD IN AN ERA OF FACTUAL RECESSION

"Sheer amount of news is overwhelming"

68%

"News is necessary to democracy"

82%

"It's difficult to tell fake news from real news"

45%

What steps can truth workers take?● Librarians● Educators● Journalists

N = 6,049

STAY TUNED Report Release: Oct. 16

What every librarian should know about young news consumers Alison J. Head, Ph.D.,Director, Project Information Literacy, projectinfolit.org

American Library Association Annual, June 23, 2018 | New Orleans | alison@projectinfolit.org

SOURCES

PIL Publicationshttp://www.projectinfolit.org/publications.html

"How College Students Use the Web to Conduct Everyday Life Research,” Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, First Monday, April 2011, vol. 16, no. 4, http://firstmonday.org/article/view/3484/2857

"The Importance of Truth Workers in an Era of Factual Recession," Alison J. Head and John Wihbey, Medium, April 8, 2017, https://medium.com/@ajhead1/the-importance-of-truth-workers-in-an-era-of-factual-recession-7487fda8eb3b

“Takis Metaxas: Separating Truth from Lies,” Alison Head and Kirsten Hostetler, Project Information Literacy, Smart Talk Interview, no. 27, 21 February 2017,http://www.projectinfolit.org/takis-metaxas-smart-talk.html

Related Research “From Schooled Skepticism to Informed Trust,” Barbara Fister. Inside Higher Education, February 27, 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/schooled-skepticism-informed-trust

“Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions: 2018,” Nic Newman, Digital News Project, Oxford University, June 2018, https://agency.reuters.com/content/dam/openweb/documents/pdf/news-agency/report/journalism-media-technology-trends-and-predictions-2018.pdf

“Know News White Paper: Engaging Across Allied Professions to Combat Misinformation,” L. Saunders, R. Gans-Boriskin, L. Hinchliff, et al., http://slis.simmons.edu/blogs/disinformation/white-paper/

“The Modern News Consumer,” Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, Michael Barthum, et. al, Pew Research Center for Journalism & Media, July 7, 2016,http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/the-modern-news-consumer/

“News Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and Public Opinion: A Study of Agenda-Setting, Priming, and Framing,” Shanto Iyengar and Adam Simon, Communication Research, June 1993, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 365-383.

“The Science of Fake News,” David J. Lazar, Matthew A. Baum, Y. Benkler, et al., Science, March 9, 2018, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1094

“What Americans Know, and Don’t, about how Journalism Works,” The Media Insight Project, American Press Institute, June 11, 2018, https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/what-americans-know-about-journalism/