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THE PARADOX OF POPULARITY

Irene Costera Meijer
Published online: 16 Feb 2007.
To cite this article: Irene Costera Meijer (2007) THE PARADOX OF POPULARITY, Journalism Studies,
8:1, 96-116, DOI: 10.1080/14616700601056874
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THE PARADOX OF POPULARITY
How young people experience the news
Irene Costera Meijer
In a world of increasing information supply, the nature and experience of information is bound to
change. This becomes evident first among members of the new generation. If previously
individuals in this age group were expected to turn to a more mainstream pattern of news
consumption once they grew older, this article provides more detailed insight into the conditions,
circumstances and processes that suggest a radical break with this traditional pattern. Young
people are not so much looking for ‘‘news’’ and information as ends in themselves, but rather as
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the basis for conversation topics, inspiration, a sense of belonging and meaning to their life.
Although news is important in the life of young adults (15 25), they hardly watch it. If they do not
want news to be made deliberately more entertaining because it would imply that news is no
longer (important) news, many of them still claim to watch news-like programs because they find
them entertaining. The double viewing paradox involved here is that their satisfaction about and
even interest in ‘‘serious’’ news does not automatically cause them to watch it, while, vice versa,
their contempt for light news programs (‘‘stupid,’’ ‘‘junk’’) does not prevent them from watching
and enjoying them. This paper concentrates on the media experiences of 450 young people
(between age 15 and 25, of different cultural and educational backgrounds) in the Netherlands. It
argues that in order to serve this specific audience both today and in the future, quality standards
should be raised instead of lowered, while conventional news values *independence, factuality
and trustworthiness *continue to be valid more than ever.
KEYWORDS audience studies; popular media; young adults
Introduction
News is like a whole-wheat sandwich: you eat it because it is healthy, not because it is
tasty. (Iris, college student, age 25)
There are clear signs that today’s young people pay less attention to conventional
media-based news, be it from television or newspapers. Only one out of five 15-year-olds
has a broad interest in media information (Beekhoven and Van Wel, 1998), while as many
as 14 per cent of those between 16 and 24 feel that there is too much news on television
(Hargreaves and Thomas, 2002). Although it was always assumed that young people more
or less automatically develop a need for news and information once they move into
adulthood, this no longer proves to be the case. This particular age effect has been
replaced by a so-called ‘‘cohort-effect’’ (Buckingham, 2000a), which implies that young
people’s lack of interest in news is likely to persist when they grow older (Barnhurst and
Wartella, 1998; Buckingham, 2000b; Hargreaves and Thomas, 2002; Raeymakers, 2003).
The declining appetite for news among young people is related to fundamental
technological changes in our culture. Since the late 1980s, when there were only three
television channels in the Netherlands and four in the UK, Europe has been moving
Journalism Studies, Vol. 8, No 1, 2007
ISSN 1461-670X print/1469-9699 online/07/010096-21
– 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14616700601056874
THE PARADOX OF POPULARITY 97
inexorably towards a multi-channel broadcasting environment.Today, an array of media

services is available anytime, anyplace. With the emergence of the Internet, the introduction
of various mobile phone technologies and the expansion of commercial broadcasting, the
amount of information and entertainment has grown inordinately. This in turn has
influenced where young people find their information, how they interact with each other
and which entertainment they value (Huysmans et al., 2004). In a world of information excess
the nature and experience of information is bound to change, of course, and this has
become evident first among members of the new generation (Johnson, 2006). It turns out
that to many of them conventional news is hardly appealing. They are not so much looking
for ‘‘news’’ and information, but rather for inspiration, a sense of belonging and meaning to
their life (Nijs and Peters, 2002). Some critics have argued that we are moving towards an
‘‘experience economy’’ (de Haan et al., 2001; Pine and Gilmore, 2000). If this is the case
indeed, the media have to learn to create appealing worlds of experience (cf. Piët, 2003), not
just as a way to attract young people but as part of a general service-oriented approach that
will ensure the media’s success in the future as well.

How can or should today’s news organizations, which have long relied on a
straightforward facts-and-opinions approach, respond to an increasingly experience-
oriented society? Do they have to compromise their professional values *independence,
factuality, and trustworthiness *in order to serve a younger audience? Do they have to
lower their standards in order to reach them? This article engages in a critical fashion with
these new options and various changes by focusing on the concerns of younger people in
particular. It covers the media experiences of 450 individuals between 15 and 25 who live
in the Netherlands and come from a variety of cultural and educational backgrounds.
Specifically, our argument is based on data derived from 239 in-depth interviews, 148
news biographies and 65 online questionnaires that directly and indirectly reveal clear
patterns of information consumption.
Young People’s News Consumption

Data from the Dutch audience research foundation (SKO, 2004) reveal that the
viewer density and the market share of Dutch public TV’s major news broadcast, NOS
News (or ‘‘NOS Journaal ’’), are much lower for the age group 16 24 than for the general
population (Table 1).
The viewer rates for commercial news broadcasts on Dutch television display a
similar pattern (Witte, 2004). Moreover, the younger generation also proves to be less
TABLE 1
Average viewer rates and market shares, Dutch NOS News, January 2004, for the 6 p.m. and
8 p.m. broadcasts
Viewer rate Market share

Time
6 p.m.
Age 6/
9.7 3.3

Age 16 24 Age 6/
33.6

Age 16 24
18.8
8 p.m. 12.4 3.6 28.7 13.0
Rates: percentage of the total Dutch population of 6 years and older who watch the news. Market
share: the share of the total Dutch population of 6 years and older who watch the news as a
percentage of the total amount of television viewers of 6 years and older at that particular moment.
Source: SKO (2004).
98 IRENE COSTERA MEIJER
TABLE 2
Age and newspaper readership in the Netherlands (%)
Age group Netherlands National Regional

newspapers newspapers
13 24 years 15 11 11
25 34 years 18 16 13
35 49 years 29 29 28
50 64 years 22 27 29
65 years and older 15 18 19
Total 99 101 100
Source: NOM Print Monitor November 2003 to October 2004 (Bakker and Scholten, 2005, p. 7).
attracted by newspapers and news magazines (Table 2). If young people read newspapers
at all, it is usually one of the new newspapers that are distributed free of charge in railway
stations and elsewhere (Bakker and Scholten, 2005).
Among today’s young people we no longer encounter a straightforward, unambig-
uous interrelationship between watching television news, civic identity and social
involvement: ‘‘Whatever it means to them to be citizens, to be political does not seem
to require the services of television news’’ (Barnhurst and Wartella, 1998, p. 304).
Furthermore, Raeymakers (2003), Barnhurst and Wartella (1998) and Beekhoven and Van
Wel (1998) observe that young viewers may be hungry for news but that this is not
satisfied by the ways in which news is currently offered on television. To youngsters, many
topics in standard news programs are hardly appealing, especially domestic politics,
international politics, culture and the economy which are seen as the least interesting. If
they show concern for news at all, they appear mainly interested in following news
headlines (Groenhuijsen and Van Liempt, 1995; Raeymakers, 2003), which is why some
mockingly refer to them as ‘‘spotlight chasers’’ (Hargreaves and Thomas, 2002). Barnhurst
(1998, p. 205) has even gone as far to claim that the products of institutional journalism are
largely felt to be ‘‘irrelevant to their lives’’. Most news, it seems, belongs to a realm beyond
young people’s everyday life. In this respect Bird (2003, p. 2) has argued that much news
hardly impresses viewers, unless they are personally affected by it: ‘‘The images and
messages wash over us, but most leave little trace, unless they resonate, even for a
moment, with something in our personal or cultural experience.’’
Putnam (1995, 2000) and more recently Mindich (2005) suggested that the marginal
significance of news and current affairs programs in the life of youngsters is indicative of
their limited social involvement, but Beekhoven and Van Wel (1998) concluded that this is
not necessarily the case. Only when young people increasingly experience media
worldviews as fragmented and gloomy do they tend to be less involved in global and
political issues. This could be countered, several critics have claimed, by presenting news
in more coherent ways or in more appealing formats (Beekhoven and Van Wel, 1998;
Buckingham, 1999; Costera Meijer, 2003; Fiske, 1992; Katz, 1993; Livingstone, 2002;
Raeymakers, 2003). According to Richard Sambrook, director of BBC World Service and
Global News Division and former director BBC news, young people ‘‘no longer sit down
with news as appointment viewing, but it would be wrong to conclude that they don’t
care about the news’’ (Hargreaves and Thomas, 2002, p. 85).
Other research suggests that young people do in fact value news. Gauntlett and Hill
(1999) asked their young British respondents to keep a diary of their TV viewing behavior
during a period of five years. Based on these diaries, the researchers claim that news
programs increasingly became part of the youngsters’ daily routine as they grew older.
Data gathered by Raeymakers (2003, p. 173) indicate that in the Dutch-speaking part of
Belgium over 40 percent of the young respondents (age 16 18) consume news regularly.
The Dutch Central Data Agency also concluded that young people’s interest in TV news
increases as they mature. In the Netherlands, more than one out of three in the age group
15 17 and more than one of two in the age group 18 24 report that they follow the news
on a daily basis (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2003, p. 119).
The striking difference between these data and the viewer rates mentioned above
may be explained by the fact that the high percentages come from surveys that rely on
self-reporting by youngsters (cf. Raeymakers, 2003, p. 168). Moreover, even when young
people show an interest in news, they tend to follow television news in a fragmentary way
and merely focus on the large issues. As soon as it takes too much of an effort to watch,
they basically pull out. Interestingly, results reported by Barnhurst and Wartella (1998)
support the conclusion that young people experience news as just one genre out of many
in the never-ending flow of television images. Moreover, they do not draw a strict line
between entertainment and information, and to develop their political awareness they rely
on a much broader set of programs and media than just news. In this respect Barnhurst
has argued that young people ‘‘use magazines, ads and commercials, fictional TV shows
and films and sports or gaming to give form to their dreams, personal or collective, and
then they act as bricoleurs, gathering the detritus of fad and fashion to create their own
styles and express themselves as political beings’’ (1998, p. 217).
Moving Beyond Conflicting Research Results

The research results mentioned above bring to light two paradoxical situations in
particular. First, various researchers suggest that young people tend to show an increasing
interest in news as they get older, but ratings show that today’s young generation (age
15 25) hardly reads newspapers, watches television news or current affairs programs.
Second, most scholars explain these low ratings by pointing to the fact that news items
seldom touch on the lives and experience of young people and that for news to become
more relevant to them, it should be linked up more closely with their sense of the world
and be presented in a more entertaining style, while positive news items should not be
excluded. Yet, other research points to the opposite fact that youngsters reject the
popularization of television news, suggesting that ‘‘the trend to more popular forms bears
some responsibility for the rejection of television news by young people’’ (Barnhurst and
Wartella, 1998, p. 302).
In order to explain and move beyond these contradictory results we decided to
adopt a more comprehensive approach. Our major objective was to establish how today’s
young individuals in the Netherlands actually experience and reflect on television news.
Apart from two research assistants and myself, a total of 37 students were active as data
gatherers in our project. They conducted 239 in-depth interviews with youngsters and did
100 street interviews with individuals of various ages and backgrounds at various locations
in the Netherlands. Because our investigation was sponsored by NOS News , the number
one Dutch news program, our interviewers gained easy access to places where young
people gather: trains, schools, universities, shopping malls, fast food restaurants, sports
cafeterias. In addition, we analyzed 148 news biographies, 65 extensive digital
questionnaires and 147 news items that appeared on Dutch and foreign stations (BBC,
ARD, VRT, US). By using a method called ‘‘triangulation’’ *combining multiple observers,
theories, methods, and empirical materials *I wanted to overcome the problems that may
have caused the paradoxical results of earlier news research. The underlying idea is that
one can be more confident with a result if different methods lead to the same result. In
addition, I relied on compeers *the ‘‘problematic’’ group itself *as student-researchers,
and in their selection I included both news ‘‘junks’’ and news ‘‘haters.’’ Furthermore, our
investigations did not exclusively focus on the genre’s positive relevance to them; after all,
we had to account for young people’s aversion to news as a genre as well. Third, in our
interviews we not only addressed news as presented in various media, but also in relation
to other media genres, notably because young people’s definition of news itself was at
stake. Popular genres among young people (reality TV, soaps, sports etc.) were
investigated for clues as to their popularity, while we also related young people’s use
of television to their usage of radio, newspapers, mobile phones, and the Internet.
Specifically, our study is based on the views and experiences of 450 young individuals in
the Netherlands between age 15 and 25. Their background may differ in terms of ethnicity,
gender, culture, region and education. Furthermore, we interviewed 43 students of various
journalism schools on their preferences and aversions regarding news. Where existing
methods failed to produce useful results, we adapted our tools or invented new ones (cf.
Gauntlett, 2003).
Fun and Excitement! Young People’s Media Use

If young people do not feel attracted to news or even never watch news, what in
fact do they like? What do they want to know? Today’s youngsters are busy with school
and homework, and after school they engage in sports or dancing, they earn a little extra
money by working in a restaurant or the neighborhood supermarket, they spend time
shopping, they hang around and chat with friends, or they can be found behind their
computer or watching TV. The enormous popularity of cell phones, SMS messages and
MSN underscores the crucial importance of contact, interaction, communication with
friends. While MSN mainly evokes positive associations among the young people in our
survey, many consider watching TV a ‘‘stupid activity.’’ Watching TV, they feel, is like doing
nothing: it is useless, a last resort, a waste of time, and therefore you might as well check
with your friends to see what they are up to. As Cindy (age 16, advanced high school)
observes: ‘‘I really do not watch TV any longer because I am simply on MSN all the time;
MSN has truly taken the place of TV.’’
Recently, the amount of time spent watching TV as a percentage of young people’s
activities has dropped for the first time ever (Huysmans et al., 2004). Yet there are still
many who consider TV viewing as relaxing, a reward after hard work, and who do enjoy
watching exciting and informative programs. It is not uncommon for episodes from reality
programs such as Idols , Temptation Island , and Peking Express to provoke endless
discussions about the participants and speculations on the ultimate winner. If enough
young people watch, this will stimulate the others to watch because by not watching they
automatically exclude themselves from major topics of conversation. Sjoerd (age 15, basic
high school) indicates that it is important ‘‘to keep up with the times a little bit and when
everybody is talking about Idols , and you’re not watching it, you’re simply unable to join in
the conversation.’’
If anything, our interviews revealed the enormous passion and eagerness with which
young people talk about television programs and the individuals that appear in them.
Young people all too gladly offer their opinions on the stupidity of one news anchor, the
twaddle of this or that talk show host, or the boring talking heads that appear on NOS
News . Television programs are celebrated as ‘‘fun,’’ ‘‘wonderful,’’ ‘‘fantastic’’ or slated as
‘‘trashy,’’ ‘‘bullshit,’’ or ‘‘crap.’’ Consider this conversation between three college students
who live in the same home:
Pascal (22, student): Dismissed I always find great! I really make sure not to miss it.
Michiel (20, student): Yes, Dismissed is wonderful indeed. It is on MTV. You really should
watch it; it is good. I don’t know when it is on . . . around dinner time or so.
Matthijs (23, student): Yeah, It is about a woman who has a date with two fellows and has
to pick one of them. It’s great.

Michiel: It’s funny to see how someone gets dumped who then comments like ‘‘I don’t
feel dismissed at all,‘‘. . . It’s all so childish in Dismissed , just people in their twenties,
really . . . you should watch it!
The criteria used to evaluate programs are tied to their being funny and pleasurable.
Gender differences are hardly relevant here. Girls enjoy ‘‘trashing’’ TV characters as much
as boys do. This is not to say that young viewers only like to watch TV to be entertained.
They also indicate that they are attracted by programs that encourage them to reflect, or
by programs that may teach them something about their own life. Being fun and being
educational are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Such an educational element is not
restricted to serious genres. Both award-winning drama and commercial soap drama
stimulate viewers to reflect on their own life. Consider the following conversation on soaps
by Linda (age 16, advanced high school) and Mirthe (age 15, advanced high school):
Linda: Then they are pregnant again or whatever, those teenage mothers, well, that is
something to avoid. I know that of course, but it is good to be reminded of some things
by seeing them.
Interviewer: Can you give an example?
Mirthe: In Good Times [Dutch RTL soap opera], say, they also used to having problems
like these, yes, she had anorexia and that kind of thing.
Linda: Yes, you see that and then you really think, oh, I really should never let things get
that far or so.
Mirthe: Or, eh, what else do you have . . . That she became handicapped and still wanted
to be accepted or what not, and treated as a normal human being rather than as a
handicapped one. Things like that, you know. Everyone’s a role model, including the
negative ones, of course, and you say: no, this is very wrong, this is not acceptable.
Young people derive knowledge about sexuality and relationships as much from
soap operas as from their parents or teachers, and in this respect our research results agree
with those of Buckingham and Bragg (2004). Soaps can even be more informative because
youngsters feel less embarrassed when watching TV and soap issues are more attuned to
their needs and interests. Although they claim to enjoy watching ‘‘stupid’’ programs, they
do not shun serious topics. They are concerned with issues such as drugs, violence, AIDS
and racism. They also feel that serious information does not automatically exclude humor
or a light tone. Many youngsters make no essential difference between entertainment and
information. In both cases, ‘‘fun’’ or ‘‘interesting’’ is a precondition to keep on watching a
particular program. Function does not follow format in the experience of young adults.
What can makers of informative and news programs learn from these other genres and
which elements are useful in particular?
Informative Function of Knowledge Is Subordinate to Communicative

Function
Young people indicate that they are interested in particular in shocking, bizarre,
funny and abnormal events. Odd humor and strange rumors attract their attention. The
particular relevance of such information to them is that it supplies them with conversation
topics. Information has to be new, fun, exciting, odd or harsh; a program has to have some
ingredient that impresses, surprises, amazes or shocks them. After all, regular topics
provide little incentive for starting a chat with friends. Young people find the informative
function of knowledge to be subordinate to its communicative function. Getting a so-
called ‘‘aha’’ experience is a second incentive. When asked what is interesting information,
young people mention information ‘‘on things as they are, such as why a day has twenty-
four hours instead of ten or one hundred or twenty’’ (Bas, age 16, advanced high school).
They like to get a bite of a variety of programs, which is why perhaps ‘‘snacking’’ is in some
ways a more appropriate concept than zapping in their case. They display an interest in
soaps or series with exciting narrative lines that ensure they also watch the next episode
(Friends , celebrity reality TV, soaps, Idols ). But they also favor stations or programming
with a thematic emphasis (National Geographic, Animal Planet or Discovery Channel, or
news sites such as nu.nl and fok.nl). Youngsters like to be challenged in terms of their need
to discover things they did not know before. They want to learn new things and
understand how they function.
Pleasantly Real or Too Fake

The curiosity of young people also attracts them to programming that allows them
to identify with views and lifestyles in other cultures or countries. Young people like to be
able to imagine what it is like to be someone else. They want to be able to empathize and
understand how other people live and what motivates them. Even when it concerns
general problems like AIDS, racism, drugs or violence, they like to see people’s individual
stories. For most young adults information has more impact when it is couched in terms of
personal experience.
Niels (age 22, college): Well, for instance, that program on BNN, This Is How You Fuck , and
also how these youngsters who have AIDS or an STD or so, how they tell their
experiences, eh, I actually find it interesting.
Interviewer: Sure, why is that interesting to you, why is it important to know?
Niels: Well, you start thinking more about it, eh, about whether it is useful to do without,
say. It is just real, the people it happened to can just talk about their experiences, I feel.
Interviewer: You can learn from it.
Niels: Yes.
This desire for learning things perhaps also explains the popularity of reality TV
among youngsters. They enjoy getting an inside look into the real lives of popular singers,
the wives of famous soccer players or the participants of Temptation Island . There is a lot
of truth in the claim by Steven Johnson (2006) that the pleasure and attraction of reality
shows lies in the kind of involvement they organize: they challenge our emotional
intelligence. By watching them, we learn to read, to assess and to respond appropriately to
other people’s emotional signals. It is illustrative that each program in this genre is valued
differently. Youngsters do not exclusively judge programs on their entertaining or
informative function, but deploy a much wider evaluative repertoire: fake or real,
pleasantly fake or too fake, pleasantly real or too real, detached or involved, warm or
cold, one-sided or multivoiced are all relevant standards used for evaluating the flow of
televised images and emotions. News and hospital documentary series are often ‘‘too
real.’’ Patty’s Posse (a slightly kinky celebrity soap) and RTL Boulevard (an ironic daily
current affairs show) are ‘‘pleasantly fake,’’ but similar programs like The Adams Family
(nouveau riche celebrity soap) and SBS News (small news show) are ‘‘too fake.’’ The
celebrity show about popular crooner Frans Bauer is, many youngsters feel, pleasantly real.
The program shows, for instance, how the singer takes 15 minutes to hang a small
painting on the wall in his daughter’s bedroom. Hoijer (2000, p. 194) suggests that our
notion of a genre creates specific expectations about programs. The recognizability of
ordinary daily activities (taking children to school, cleaning the bathroom, preparing
dinner) makes a reality program real. Realness is also a major standard as such. It was
authenticity that made the first Big Brother series (1999) a successful viewer spectacle.
Viewers were all constantly judging the residents of the Big Brother house on their talent
to be who they are (Costera Meijer and Reesink, 2000). Young people find it important that
people are genuine and that they not behave in exaggerated, unnatural or fake ways. This
is also why youngsters tend to enjoy programs that mock such conduct.
Multi-tasking and Multi-layering

Earlier generations learned about the world from texts, books, radio, magazines and
newspapers, but today’s young generation in the Netherlands grew up with at least five to
twelve Dutch TV channels, a video recorder, cartoon books, computers, cell phones, MTV
and digital cameras. From the start these young people have been inundated with texts and
images from places which people belonging to older generations had no experience of
when they were young. Unlike many older viewers, many youngsters will pick up a lot of
information without watching a specific program attentively. Two decades of watching
increasingly complex, multithreaded and multilayered television have honed their ‘‘reading’’
skills (Johnson, 2006). They also have learned that information is only meaningful when you
can use it. Which information is useful does not always follow established patterns. Lifestyle
trends are of vital importance. Television, after all, has taught people how to form opinions
about others (how to ‘‘read’’ others) by their appearance: the clothes you wear might
determine whether you get a particular job or not.
Furthermore, youngsters tend to engage simultaneously in multiple media activities
(listening to the radio, searching for something on the Internet) and other activities (doing
homework, doing the dishes). Zap behavior among young viewers is mostly explained as
an effort to control the multitude of images to which they are exposed. Young ‘‘homo
zappens’’ would employ the remote control literally as a way to control the images (de
Mul, 1995). In this respect their zapping behavior is generally seen to indicate that they
deal differently with information than those in older generations. The emphasis by de Mul
(1995) on control does not account for why older people do not display this same
behavior. Aren’t they exposed to the same number of images? Rather than zapping being
motivated by boredom or a desire for zero brain activity, it may be more accurately
described as reflective of an eagerness to know all the time what is going on, where the
excitement is, in part out of fear of missing some interesting program. Zapping can create
some sort of hyperconsciousness of all that is broadcast at a given moment; it renders the
brain hyperactive.
Young People and Their Experience of News Television

Nearly all of the 452 youngsters whose experiences we recorded consider news a
major TV genre. As Laura (20) indicated: ‘‘My parents always told me that news mattered
and that it is important to be informed about current developments, at home as well as
abroad.’’ Watching the news is good for you and everyone should do it. Although a small
(well-educated) group claims to be watching news out of a sense of duty *to stay
informed, be able to join in the conversation and not be embarrassed *these same
considerations apply less to other viewers; they feel that when something major happens,
they will learn about it anyway. Young people do not watch news as part of a daily routine,
as is true of many older viewers. Instead, young people watch news because TV is on and
others are watching, because they happen to have nothing else to do at that moment. If
while zapping they happen to run into news, some may watch it for a few minutes, but
most will move on to another station after they have seen the headlines.
How is it possible, we asked ourselves, that most young people believe news is very
important, but that many also feel that it has little actual relevance to their lives? We tried to
address this contradiction by putting their news consumption in the broader context of their
media use. One explanation is the fact that young people only want to consume news if
there is a specific reason to do so. As two 15-year-old high school students comment:
Lisselotte: Yes, it is in fact important to know what the news is . . .

Jona: True, you have to know a little about what is going on at the other end of the
world . . . Of course things happen here as well, but not really such extreme hunger and
all that . . .
Lisselotte: We are fortunate to be well off.
Interviewer: Do you watch the news often?
Lisselotte: Well . . .
Jona: Well, ha ha, not too often.
Interviewer: First saying yes, like a good girl, and then, no, we actually do not watch news
at all.
Lisselotte: But you hear about things anyway . . .
Jona: Yes, You simply hear it on the radio as well and then, yes . . .
Interviewer: Via friends or . . .
Lisselotte: Sure, and from your parents of course and when truly something big
happens . . .
Jona: Then you automatically hear about it.
Because young people are almost permanently in contact with their peers, siblings
or parents through various new means of communication, they feel no need to watch the
news all the time. They will soon be informed about important news anyway.
Real News and Fake News and the Double Viewing Paradox
When asked how they preferred to see the news presented, invariably our
interviewees responded that news should remain the way it is. Why do youngsters
believe that a major TV genre should not be changed, even if they feel hardly attracted to
it? First, there is the seeming sacrosanctity of the news genre’s features. Youngsters are
very aware of the social status and civic importance that are attributed to quality news.
Second, they use these conventions to make a distinction between real and other news,
between important and trivial news, between weighty matters and light news, between
quality information and entertainment. We found, as did Barnhurst and Wartella (1998),
that young people do not appreciate the ‘‘soapification’’ of news, making it more fun and
appealing to watch as a goal in and of itself. Youngsters want news to address major
issues, to be reliable and not to be made more entertaining. Debby (age 19, advanced
high school) admits that she hardly watches news but that when she does, she wants to
watch quality news. This attitude has to do in part with young people’s awareness of
brands. Generally they are very aware of when a brand signifies A-quality or B-quality. They
apply this to news as well, expecting from a public news program such as NOS News that it
lives up to its A-reputation. This means that the news is presented in a serious way, and
that it is true, objective and reliable. It is the ‘‘real news’’ *a solid image with which
commercial news broadcasts in the Netherlands can never compete. When respondents
talk about news on commercial TV they refer to it as ‘‘B-news,’’ but they also use
disparaging terms such as ‘‘exploitative,’’ ‘‘overly commercial,’’ ‘‘keen on sensation,’’
‘‘nonsense news’’ and ‘‘superfluous news.’’ The commercial news programs are largely
seen as providing ‘‘fake news.’’
Linda (age 16, advanced high school): Each morning on SBS6 you also have, eh..
Mirthe (age 15, advanced high school): the exaggerated news, or the fake news! . . . I
really find it to be fake news. It is really, eh . . . two puppies were stolen someplace.
Things like that; it is really empty
.Linda: Well, you also see just everyday things there.
Mirthe: That is really the B-news.
Interviewer: B-news?
Mirthe: Well, for instance when you . . .
Linda: The B-news is my level then . . . Ha ha . . .
Mirthe: It is, for example, when you, eh, about small things. For example, eh, soccer club
Wiron where money was stolen and all that . . . It is really B-news.
Similarly, Jona (15) and Lisselotte (15) claim they prefer ‘‘real’’ news over ‘‘fake’’ news
and although they often enjoy the latter more, watching ‘‘real news’’ gives them the
satisfaction of doing something useful:
Lisselotte: well, [they tell you] that somewhere twin sheep are born or so . . . well. I just
don’t need to . . .
Jona: Yes, sometimes it is funny to see, but, true enough, I rather watch the real news . . .
Lisselotte: Because then you do it for a reason.
Young people do not want news to be made deliberately more entertaining

because it implies that news is no longer (important) news. Still many of them prefer to
watch news-like programs that they find entertaining. How should we understand this
viewing paradox? By collectively characterizing news as important, reliable, objective, grey,
boring and ‘‘not meant for people like us’’, young viewers simultaneously exclude
themselves as audience group. As three students told us: ‘‘We value serious journalism but
it is also boring; at the same time when they make it more entertaining *as in Hart van
Nederland or Editie NL *we do not appreciate it.’’ Overtly entertaining news programs are
not experienced as news but young people still watch them, while serious news programs
are experienced as news but they are much less popular. Young people have no problem
reproducing the genre conventions of news, which they learned from television itself, at
school or from their parents. Similarly they also have a clear sense of what is not news:
when it is popular, fast, fun, colorful etc. In contrast to results reported by the British
researchers Gauntlett and Hill (1999), our study revealed that there is no automatic
relationship between the importance attributed by young people to news and their actual
behavior as viewers. In this respect, Elisabeth Bird has claimed: ‘‘Thus while many people
feel the obligation to be ‘well-informed’ and listen to ‘important news,’ their emotions and
their attention are caught by dramatic, exciting stories’’ (2003, p. 29). Youngsters know
very well what news is, or rather, what news ought to be . Talking with young people about
the form and content of news, then, leads to a related conclusion that news, after all, ought
not to be fun.
The double viewing paradox is that their satisfaction about and even interest in
‘‘serious’’ news does not automatically cause them to watch it, while, vice versa, their
contempt for light news programs (‘‘stupid,’’ ‘‘junk’’) does not keep them from watching
and enjoying them. They feel that making news more entertaining does not work because
it reduces real news to fake news. This paradoxical behavior among young people is
closely bound up with how they conceive of the term ‘‘news.’’ News is important,
educational, etc., and these associations exclude entertainment. If a news-like program
allows for watching in a relaxed manner, many young people feel that it cannot be a good
news program. There is no automatic correlation, then, between actually watching a
program and the significance attributed to the same program.
News as Public Service and Basic Facility

News thus appears to be caught up in an irresolvable paradox: when news is
presented in a serious and sound way, it is perceived as the real thing but, apart from
natural or man-made disasters, usually considered too boring to watch. When news is
made more appealing and accessible, ratings are higher, but it is no longer perceived as
news. We interpret this seemingly illogical viewing behavior with reference to the
conviction of most young people, as we discovered through our interviews, that news is,
or should be, a basic social service, comparable to social security, health insurance, or
family care: you have to be able to rely on its availability when you need it, preferably free
of charge, around the clock and seven days a week. This function as basic (public) service
explains the discrepancy between high appreciation of news and low viewer ratings. Such
ratings do not say anything about the significance attached by young viewers to a good
public news supply. By contrast, high ratings perhaps tell us something about the
program’s entertaining character but they are not a reliable standard for measuring its
importance.
Tasty News
Our study suggests various other relevant dimensions when it comes to gathering
more insight into this viewing paradox among young individuals. High school students,
we found, consider the difference between real news and other news as less important
than young people over 20. Although those in the younger age group (15 20) notice that
NOS News uses a different formula than the ironic and unconventional RTL Boulevard , they
do not judge this difference and also feel less ashamed about watching ‘‘other news.’’ For
instance, Belle (age 16, basic high school), unlike many slightly older viewers (age 20 25)
is quite honest about her preference for show news:
I do not watch a lot of TV and news does not interest me because the way they present it
is so boring. I live with my boy-friend and together with him I enjoy watching show news,
because that is fun and they offer a lot of information in a pleasant way.
Whether or not youngsters watch TV basically depends on one criterion: is the

program or station entertaining or not? Does the program offer topics for conversation by
supplying its audience with interesting facts, opinions and experiences? Judging programs
on their power to captivate viewers is tied to the function television has for young people.
By and large they watch to have fun, to be entertained. They want ‘‘to sit back and relax,’’
‘‘be a couch potato and stare empty-headed at the tube for a while.’’ Watching TV is
justified as a form of relaxation for youngsters. As Michael (age 18, VWO) claims: ‘‘To me
television is important because it is where you get your daily dose of entertainment when
you are tired and no longer feel like thinking anymore and want to relax.’’
Many girls respond that they like to see news and fashion in informative
programming for youngsters. Apparently they realize that ‘‘fashion’’ does not belong in
the same category as ‘‘news,’’ but they do not consider addressing ‘‘fashion’’ as a
disqualification. When Mia (age 16, advanced high school) is asked what sorts of
information she finds interesting, she mentions, apart from news on world events and
the weather, ‘‘news on fashion and make-up. Gossip doesn’t interest me much, but when I
hear some rumor I still listen in.’’ If young people still distinguish between news and
fashion, between serious information and light news, they also believe that both can be
combined in one program. The information from programs such as What Not to Wear , Top
Gear or Changing Rooms and the information from NOS News have equal significance to
this group. Information does not have to be ‘‘only informative and hence grey and
boring,’’ but can be tasty . It can be about Vivienne Westwood and about Iraq. Basically, all
information can be interesting, as long as it manages to appeal to young people, whether
it is about ‘‘showbiz, wars, music and what is going on in Amsterdam’’ (Priscilla, age 15,
advanced high school).
Thus, it seems, the viewing paradox among young people becomes stronger as they
grow older, or, put differently, when viewers are younger, the distinction between real
news and other news or entertainment plays less of a disqualifying role. Teenagers do not
pull out in advance when they hear the word ‘‘news,’’ or when they suspect that they are
watching an informative program. Conversely, entertaining genres can be informative as
well. Many youngsters watch soaps to learn more about sexuality and everyday modes of
conduct. Younger viewers (teenagers) increasingly do not consider genre distinctions
between information and entertainment as coinciding automatically with specific
functions (informative or entertaining). Generally speaking, those over the age of 40
tend to discuss their media use in different terms than younger people (which does not
mean that they actually use media differently). The older group reflects on their news use
in terms of care and attention and as a way trying to grasp what is happening in the world.
When NOS News or the newspapers provide insufficient depth on a particular issue, they
feel the urge to search for background information in news magazines and current affairs
programs. Because the world is perceived as growing ever larger in media terms and more
and more issues are reported on, this approach among older people tends to lead to stress
and information overload (Lyman and Varian, 2000). Young people, by contrast, feel much
more at ease with the increased flow of information, because it allows them to taste from
many different dishes. As a 25-year-old student put it:
I enjoy being able to pick up something from all sorts of media and that you are not
stuck with only one source, so the nice thing about news is that it is short-lived and that
it is always available and, eh, because there is so much of everything that, eh, it is
pleasurable to move up and down between a variety of things.
Young people have learned that zapping is a good way to get a general impression
of a wide variety of information. Zapping is like scanning images instead of ‘‘reading’’ texts
attentively. Youngsters tend to make no basic distinction between facts and backgrounds.
They know that the world cannot be neatly divided into categories and hierarchies. What
for one student is major news (earthquake in Morocco) is merely a distant tragedy for
another. Their world no longer speaks in one voice, but is multivoiced. Objectivity does
not exist in their experience and thus they are not inclined to identify with a single
standpoint; instead, they zap in order to get a flavor of multiple vantage points (cf. Huesca
and Dervin, 2003).
From the perspective of older people zapping is superficial, but from the angle of
youngsters it is merely another way of collecting information, which is more geared to
broad and contextual insight than to in-depth knowledge. Young viewers do not just zap
because they are bored with what they see. Zapping is also a way of checking whether you
missed something important, of finding out if perhaps there is more to be gained from
viewing. They do not so much cut themselves off, as continuously gather bits and pieces
of information from a large variety of media. Rather than reflecting zero brain activity,
zapping requires a concentrated effort.
Snacking 24/7
The character of news as basic service means that news has to be available when
you need it. It gives a feeling of security. This preference for a 24-hour news service is not
limited to a younger audience. According to Lewis et al. (2005), audiences are increasingly
moving from conventional bulletins to the 24-hour news channels. They refer to data in
Ofcom (2004) which suggest that between 1998 and 2003 the audience share for the early
evening news programmes on BBC and ITV declined by 16 and 37 per cent, respectively.
Mindich (2005) discounts the Internet as a source of news because the news is not
the prime reason for an individual’s Internet use. News may not be the prime reason for an
individual’s Internet use, but our data suggest that many youngsters use text TV (teletext)
and the Internet when they want to check the state of affairs in the world. They do not
necessarily feel the need to be fully informed citizens, but many feel a regular urge to
monitor or quickly check on the news (cf. Graber, 2003; Schudson, 1999; Zaller, 2003). The
Internet is a medium that perfectly lends itself to an approach that is based on zapping or
monitoring. The current generation of teenagers and those in their early 20s have all
grown up with the World Wide Web. When they think about informative programs for
young people, they often mention the Internet as an alternative to television. David (age
19, advanced high school) emphasizes the speed of the medium:
I spend a lot of time on the computer/Internet and that is also where I get all my news.
After all news will be on the Internet before it is broadcast on television, so it is perhaps a
vanishing medium. Almost everything on TV can also be downloaded through the
Internet.
Other youngsters stress the greater efficiency of news sites. A 24-year-old student of
Chinese descent claims that she ‘‘does watch TV but not really for news because it
contains things that I hardly find interesting, while on the sites I can select the news I want
to read.’’ A 20-year-old Dutch student says that she relies more on the Internet: ‘‘It is nice
and fast and comprehensive; you can quickly move on to the next topic and you also get
more entertaining news.’’
Young people may not particularly like conventional news as a genre, but they are
very eager to be informed about the latest news. One way of finding it is by quickly visiting
a news site. Erik (age 25, of Chinese background) visits nu.nl at least 10 times a day: ‘‘Well,
it is very easy to check; you see immediately when something has happened. It hardly
takes time; it is really a matter of a flash and you are gone again.’’ The advantage of
Internet over television is that its news is always available and updated. Moreover, you
decide for yourself which news items you check in more detail. Youngsters in particular
engage in this ‘‘snacking’’ of news. As a 22-year-old Dutch student comments: ‘‘If for
instance you are watching the news and something that interests you comes last, this
means you have to sit through the entire program. But on the Internet you can see right
away what you want to know, and what is happening.’’ Some students even get rid of
their TV set and use their computer screen for both television and the Internet. As Steven
(age 21, college) comments: ‘‘I just have a computer in my living room. It is for Internet and
also to follow the news and that sort of thing. Recently I bought a TV card, which allows
me to watch TV on my computer. It saves space, for otherwise I would have to buy a
separate TV set.’’
The desire to be quickly informed of what matters to you is not just characteristic of
well-educated youngsters. The 21-year-old assistant chef Achmed-Amin (of Moroccan
background) claims to rely more on the Internet than television. The Internet, he argues, is
more informative on his country of origin. Only when specific events are also covered by
Dutch television, such as the earthquake in Al-Husima (in 2004), does he watch TV more.
Young people do not want to postpone their need for news to a fixed moment of the day;
instead, they want to be able to satisfy this need instantly. As such the Internet more
closely fits their need to ‘‘snack’’ news than television.
A Multivoiced Imagination
Young people also value programming that makes them feel at home by
demonstrating a real understanding of them. For that reason, it is essential that news is
not made from a single white perspective. News should provide a range of different views,
opinions, angles, and experiences and it should equally cater to male and female viewers,
urban and rural viewers, as well as viewers from all ethnicities. The concern is not
pluralism, but ‘‘multivocality’’ (Shohat and Stam, 1994) or multiperspectival news (Gans,
1980). Instead of the conventional approach of delivering pros and cons, young people
prefer a range of voices, rather than opinions. If they are denied multiple perspectives,
those who are interested will start zapping and scanning various media and news
programs (Internet, newspapers, radio, NOS, RTL, BBC, Euronews, Al Jazeera) to get a sense
of what is going on. This implies that television journalism should not be focused as much
on complete, finished stories that tell a single truth. Instead, the topics should be
presented from multiple perspectives. As Rik (age 23, student) puts it: ‘‘I have trouble
watching the main news broadcast because it is read as if it is true . . . with more people
you get more vantage points. Everyone has a different point of view.’’
Young viewers want to be challenged to think for themselves and form opinions.
This can be done by having them experience the news more by addressing an issue from
various angles. Richel (age 19, basic high school, half Moluccan) and Els (19, basic high
school, white) enjoy watching a multicultural PBS program presented by the Amsterdam
lawyer Prem Radhakishun (Premtime) because he does not force opinions on viewers but
makes them experience a variety of viewpoints. The girls refer to a Premtime broadcast on
the story of some Moroccan youngsters who were not admitted to a discotheque during
which the problem is approached from the various angles of the parties involved. As Richel
puts it, ‘‘he shows it from the angle of all parties involved.’’
Showing multiple vantage points (multivocality) also means reaching out to a
culturally more diverse audience. Living in a multicultural society has taught young people
that there is no single truth. This does not imply that truth has become superfluous. Truth
is more important than ever, but it cannot be reduced to a single view or standpoint. This
is why young people have a preference for programs that show that multiple stories and
realities can exist side by side and which do not force them into identifying themselves
with one position.
Bodysnatching
The need for multivocality is related to another condition for news among young
people, one that is not geared to a particular incident or news fact, but to the experience
of news, the desire to live through the event, preferably from the perspective, or more
precisely, from the body , so to speak, of the protagonists. This need, which in some ways is
similar to the experience of playing video and computer games, we call ‘‘bodysnatching.’’
Young people like to be able to imagine the exact situation of the terrorists who flew into
the Twin Towers. Youngsters may not be interested in all the bomb attacks that occur in
Iraq or Israel, but they are eager to understand what it is like for a 14-year-old Palestinian
boy who fails to let the bomb around his waist go off. They want to know whether the boy
went to school earlier that same day, what kind of sandwich he ate, how he felt, and how
his parents and siblings respond.
This desire to be a part of the news seems akin to wanting to understand it.
Although occasionally youngsters want to experience and know all the ins and outs of
specific news, it is more typical that they are after the thrill of a specific news story, which
they briefly want to experience for themselves. They literally want to get a feel for the
emotions involved. How does it feel to escape death by drowning? What does princess
Maxima feel during her marriage ceremony?
Many older people consider ‘‘bodysnatching’’ as motivated exclusively by a lust for
sensation or malicious delight. This seems to be the case only in part, though. Quite
literally youngsters want to get an impression of an event, which becomes possible when
a news story indeed has an impact on them. What is crucial is that news makes them
aware of certain insights, that it lets them feel and experience things. Only then do they
begin to grasp what it means. News programs do not need to tell complete, perfect
stories; they may be incomplete, and only offer preliminary conclusions, yet they can have
a powerful impact as long as the news impresses through its visual language and
addresses the viewer on a cognitive as well as an emotional level. Even if the quality of
images is poor, they have much more of an impact because they make ‘‘bodysnatching’’
easier. Images can assist young viewers to more easily imagine how a particular event
occurred. For instance, Ria (age 17, basic high school) told us how precisely the TV images
corrected her own reading of stories.
Ria: Well, say, in the news on Iraq for example. I find they do a good job of showing
through images what is going on . . . also by having soldiers talk about what they
experience over there. They do not simply say there is a war in Iraq and that this or that is
going on; they really show images of what really takes place, such as people in the streets
who are shooting with their guns in the air: that is real, so you just know what is going on
over there because it is all very hard to imagine. . .
Interviewer: So what do images add to a story?
Ria: Well, just the things and the thoughts. When someone is telling something you start
thinking about it on your own, but when you see images that accompany the story, you
think, well, oh wow, this is not what I thought! Images really give you something that
adds to the story.
Interviewer: And why do you like to have images with a story?
Ria: They allow you simply to know what it’s about, I believe. Yes, you have a story then
and you start making up your own image of it. But sometimes your image is wrong, you
think it is your way but it is very different. This is why it is good indeed to have images
that go with the story!
Television does not need to provide a monopoly of such images. Video reports via
the Internet may also satisfy the need of youngsters to experience an event, especially
when multiple voices can be heard, meaning that several mini-documentaries can be
accessed each of which presents an event from a different angle.
Snack News and Slow News

Young people have certain information needs that tie in with various news formats,
and in this respect it is possible to distinguish between ‘‘snack news’’ and ‘‘slow news.’’ In
snacking taste and calories come first, not the quality of the food. Accordingly, snack news
requires a specific approach: it is fast, it possibly involves live news and often insider’s
news, whereby the live aspect of the footage is more important than the quality of story
and images. Images dispatched via mobile phone will be blurred and less sharp, but they
raise the level of ‘‘realness’’ and offer a sense of being ‘‘on top of things.’’ Most young
people emphasize that the news should be presented in a concise and factual manner,
and whenever possible be ‘‘warm’’ and ‘‘multivoiced.’’ For more information they will hang
on for more, or click on other sites.
Snacking news we define as quickly checking the headlines out of a desire to be on
top of the main issues in the news. It is a matter of wanting to be informed not as a goal in
its own right, as Klaus Brun Jensen (1986) stated 20 years ago, but to be able to ‘‘start or
join in the conversation’’ (information at the service of communication). Young people talk
about news in an Internet format, even if they refer to TV or newspaper news. Among
youngsters this transitory and ‘‘grazing’’ viewing behavior does not lead to solid
knowledge, but to ‘‘impressions.’’ Only when a news topic or a program ‘‘really’’ makes
an impression, do they stop zapping and start watching in a more attentive manner. If
from the angle of older age groups zap and snack behavior seems superficial, from the
angle of youngsters themselves it is merely another way of gathering information. It is
geared toward a broad and contextual sense of what is going on, so they are able to
situate specific events, rather than toward in-depth knowledge or elaborated opinions.
Snack news allows young people to start small talk, but for a real conversation, they
rely on slow news to understand and experience events. Slow news calls for quality images
that do not just illustrate a story but add their own narrative dimension. Young people
need slow news in order to get a ‘deep’ picture of something, to hear the complexities of
the story of an event. How and why could it happen at all? For example, at the time of our
interviews a teacher was killed in school by one of the students. Young people wanted to
know all sorts of things about this tragedy: about the young student who did it, where he
got his gun, with which values he grew up, what his friends and his family are like and who
disliked him, why the police were not able to prevent it, but also more explanation about
the specific school’s organization, its teachers, its teaching methods, its student policies
etc. One student of Turkish background could not imagine that the system itself had
nothing to do with this particular episode, while at the same time being interested in
learning everything about the killer’s social background. Slow news is about getting a
multidimensional picture of a story from political, personal, social and economic
perspectives and not just one version or interpretation.
Conclusion: Quality News for the Younger Generation

The argument in this article has focused on the role of news in the lives of today’s
young viewers. If my exploration of this concern started with the question whether news
organizations need to lower their quality standards and to compromise their professional
values of independence, factuality and trustworthiness in order to serve this specific
audience both today and in the future, it should be concluded that quality standards
should be enhanced since these overall news values are still valid to young viewers. In fact,
quality, truth and independence are more important than ever in news journalism. If these
news values do not cause the problem, their close associations with specific genres of
news formats do. Therefore, the fundamental changes in the use of information among an
ever larger group of people, and young people in particular, call for a more sustained
debate on the functionality of specific journalistic views of quality. If newspapers, news
programs, current affairs programs and opinion magazines are to cater to the imagination
of young people they need to be prepared to move beyond the conventional contra-
diction between quality and popularity, private and public sphere, emotions and reason,
autonomy and situatedness. This means that journalists need to be aware that
conventional quality standards as such have little appeal to young individuals because
they identify them as boring. In other words, quality information will have to be defined in
new ways.
First, the almost automatic response by professional journalists and other interested
people that accommodating young people equals popularization equals trivialization
needs critical reflection. Our research supports the suggestion by Steven Johnson (2006)
that the popular media have sharpened young people’s minds by continuously
confronting them with a steady stream of increasingly complex and multi-layered stories.
More and more people have become accustomed to multi-tasking and are able to keep up
with a much higher visual pace, open endings, a broad range of characters, styles,
multiple-threaded narratives and complex subject matter. News should adapt itself to the
increasing media savvy and media literacy of its audience. Why should news desks, news
leaders and news sites be dominated by ‘‘boring’’ colors like grey and blue? If you take a
look at the news sites of the Dutch RTL, the German WDR, the British BBC, ITV and Channel
4, the American ABC, Washington Post , New York Times , and at the historical development
of the news desks of RTL-news http://www.rtl.nl/(/actueel/rtlnieuws/)/components/
actueel/rtlnieuws/rtl_reporter/nieuwsvloer_leaders.xml it is no wonder that people auto-
matically perceive news as grey and boring. If news programs or newspapers are not able
to meet and satisfy these more sophisticated demands, the audience will tend to move to
other programs, media or sites. In short, news needs to raise its standards to
accommodate the taste of a growing segment of the population.
Second, it is important for news organizations to reflect on the consequences of
their automatic subordination of the newsworthiness of journalistic reporting on the
private sphere to that of the public sphere. If it is true that the look and clothing of (future)
employees are of crucial importance to many businesses, why would information on
lifestyles, fashion and make-up be less relevant than information on changes in social
security? And, finally, a society in which communication has an overriding significance
needs to reflect on the dominance of its autonomous view of human identity. For young
people who communicate with each other around-the-clock, questions on relationships,
emotions, friendship and respect are vital. But also those in older generations hardly lead
autonomous lives and their existence and identity largely take on meaning in relation to
other lives. The acknowledgment that human beings are social beings who maintain
relationships with others is a major component of this alternative view of the self (Costera
Meijer, 2001; Costera Meijer and Van Dijck, 2000; Harrington, 1997; Held, 1993).
The future of news is perhaps neither in television nor on paper but on the Internet.
The Internet potentially integrates all media (audio, video, text). Through their specific use
and appreciation of news, young people will *for reasons of efficiency, time, convenience,
feelings of security etc. *consult the latest news that has their specific interest more often
through the Internet. Yet for the time being, TV, because of its large screen and image
quality, will still have their preference.
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Irene Costera Meijer, Department of Media Studies, Amsterdam School of Cultural

Analysis, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Turfdraagsterpad 9, 1012 XT Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. E-mail: i.costerameijer@uva.nl

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This article was downloaded by: [Korea University]

On: 30 December 2014, At: 00:07

THE PARADOX OF POPULARITY

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616700601056874

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Irene Costera Meijer

KEYWORDS audience studies; popular media; young adults

inexorably towards a multi-channel broadcasting environment.Today, an array of media

will ensure the media’s success in the future as well.

Young People’s News Consumption

Viewer rate Market share

Age group Netherlands National Regional

Moving Beyond Conflicting Research Results

Fun and Excitement! Young People’s Media Use

to pick one of them. It’s great.

Informative Function of Knowledge Is Subordinate to Communicative

Pleasantly Real or Too Fake

Multi-tasking and Multi-layering

Young People and Their Experience of News Television

Lisselotte: Yes, it is in fact important to know what the news is . . .

Young people do not want news to be made deliberately more entertaining

News as Public Service and Basic Facility

is quite honest about her preference for show news:

Whether or not youngsters watch TV basically depends on one criterion: is the

Snack News and Slow News

Conclusion: Quality News for the Younger Generation

Irene Costera Meijer, Department of Media Studies, Amsterdam School of Cultural

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