A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
News consumption repertoires among Finnish adolescents: Moderate digital traditionalists, minimalist social media stumblers, and frequent omnivores
Authors: Sormanen, Niina; Rantala, Eero; Lonkila, Markku; Wilska, Terhi-Anna
Publisher: Sciendo
Publication year: 2022
Journal: Nordicom Review
Journal name in source: Nordicom Review
Volume: 43
Issue: 2
First page : 234
Last page: 253
eISSN: 2001-5119
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2022-0014
Web address : https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2022-0014
Additional information: https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/84290
Young people are perceived as heavy consumers of social media and less avid consumers of
news. That notion, however, deserves nuance: Many factors, such as the national context,
media system, trust in news, intentionally or incidentally encountering news from different
sources, and interest in politics, influence how young people consume news. This study
explores news consumption among Finnish adolescents through a representative survey of
15–19-year-olds. We seek to answer two research questions: What are the news repertoires
of Finnish adolescents? And what factors predict different news repertoires? Latent profile
analysis reveals three distinct news repertoires: 1) moderate digital traditionalists, the largest
group, embracing traditional news in digital form; 2) minimalist social media stumblers, the
second-largest group, tending to consume news infrequently through passive social media
encounters and lacking credible information; and 3) a quite large number of frequent news
omnivores, taking an interest in diverse news forms and actively seeking them.