INTRODUCTION
The youngsters of today pay less attention to traditional news media like television (Journal and current affair programs) and newspapers (Costera-Meijer 96, 2007). It was always assumed that as soon as they grow into adulthood they grow a natural interest in the news, but this is no longer the case. This previous age effect has made room for a so-called ‘‘cohort-effect’’, which suggests that youngster’s lack of interest for traditional news stays when they become older (Barnhurst and Wartella, 1998; Buckingham, 2000a+b; Hargreaves and Thomas, 2002; Raeymakers, 2003).
Many researchers interpret the declining numbers of traditional news consumption and in particular political news as evidence that the youth are not interested in news anymore (Jones, 2008; Mindich, 2005; Patterson, 2007; Quigley, 1999). They are afraid that they have become passive citizens just looking for fun and entertainment (Patterson, 2007). Others state that the declining numbers of traditional news consumption do not per se mean that youth are disinterested in news or politics (Costera Meijer, 2007; Harrington, 2008a; Marchi, 2012; Raeymaeckers, 2004; Sherr & Staples, 2004).
They show that young people do find it important to be informed, but that the ways in which traditional media present news have little in common with their living context and the problems and challenges they are daily confronted with (Banaji & Cammaerts, 2015; Barnhurst, 1998; Barnhurst & Wartella, 1991, 1998; Beekhoven & Van Wel 1998; Buckingham, 1999; Costera Meijer, 2007; Huang, 2009; Inthorn, Street & Scott, 2012; Marchi, 2012; Raeymaeckers, 2003). They just find traditional news boring, difficult to understand and irrelevant to their lives (Beekhoven and Van Wel 1998, Barnhurst & Wartella, 1991, 1998; Costera Meijer, 2007; Livingstone, 2002; Raeymaeckers, 2004, Raeymaeckers, 2004; Barnhurst, 1998; Buckingham, 1999; Costera Meijer, 2003). Critics argue that news organizations should adapt new strategies to make the news more appealing to the youth. The common sense of boredom youth feel regarding official news is often explained by the cultural, generational, and often racial disconnect between young people and the faces, news priorities, and reporting styles of mainstream journalists (Baym, 2010; Harrington, 2005; Marchi, 2012; Miller, 2007).
A couple of news organizations in the Netherlands have already experimented with new styles, like the biggest public news organization NOS did in 2007 by introducing NOS op 3, making short videos, and the biggest youth media organization VICE with VICE News in 2014, addressing the youth with an experience-based tone of voice, called immersive journalism. The Dutch PowNews attracts mainly youngsters with their combative and rude reporting style and also the satirical Zondag met Lubach and De Speld are popular among Dutch youth (cijfers over hoe groot ze zijn). Now the biggest commercial news organization in the Netherlands, RTL News, is developing a news app for the youth: Valda.
To find the right video style and the attached journalistic values, this thesis will explore the ways in which young Dutch people experience different styles in video news reporting: objective traditional, comic, immersive and combatant. Following Vraga et al (2012) who researched the impact of host style on media judgments by young American people (age 18-22), this thesis will make use of the following terms: correspondent, comic and combatant. Based on the huge popularity of VICE and the shift to an experience-oriented society, later explained, a fourth category is added: the immersive-based category, we call it “the immerser”. This leads to the following question:
How should the news be presented in video to attract the Dutch youth?
Analyzed through in-depth interviews with 15 Dutch MBO-students about what they think about four video news reporting styles: corresponding, comical, combating and immersing.
Relevance
This thesis starts from the idea that the youth don’t read or watch the mainstream news anymore. Ratings tell that today’s young Dutch generation (age 15-25) hardly reads newspapers, watches television news or current affairs programs (Reuters 2016b). Cohort analyses of Lauf (2001) and Peiser (2000) show that in the US and Europe the daily consumption of newspapers is much lower with the newer generations than the older ones. In 2012 only 6% of the 18 to 24 years old Americans and 10% of the 25-29 year olds had read a newspaper the day before, while 30% of the 50-64 year olds and 48% of the 65+ age group had read one (Pew Research Center, 2012a). The same counts for watching television news: in 2016 only 24% of the youth (age 18-24) still watches television news, compared to almost half of the 18 to 29 years old Americans in 2006. Therefore, mainstream news is rapidly losing touch with much of the population (Reuters 2016a). A longitudinal study by Wonneberger, Schoenbach and Van Meurs (2012) shows the same for the Netherlands: in a decade the amount of time the older generation spend on watching television increased, while younger generations watched television less. “The discrepancy between the attention the younger and older generations pay to television news has never been so big” (van Cauwenberge 2012).
An often repeated explanation is that the younger generation has moved their attention to digital news platforms that better fit their interests and life style. Numbers from Reuters show that 64% of the youth uses the internet as main news source in 2016 (Reuters 2016b). But they also show other developments: the increase in digital news consumption is small and the youth consume more non-professional news than professional (Pew Research Center 2012 and Reuters 2016). Van Cauwenberge (2015) summarizes this in three visible trends: a shift from (a) more to less news, (b) offline to online news, and (c) professional to non-professional news sources (pp. 13). Even though the use of digital media for news by youngsters is increasing, news does not form a substantial part of their daily routines. News usage is superficial and incidental, like Mindich (2005) and Patterson (2008) already stated: “The large fact about teens and young adults is not that they are heavily dependent on new media but that they partake only lightly of news, whatever the source. A shift in sources is occurring, and it is in the direction of the new media, but the larger tide has been the movement away from a daily news habit.” (Patterson 2008, 21)
Different critics state that news organizations don’t respond to these developments in the right ways. According to Reuters news organizations don’t make good use of the new channels and ways in which youngsters consume media (Reuters 2016a). With the growth in news outlets that make it easier to watch “what you want, when you want,” news producers compete in an increasingly cluttered media environment. The internet did not only increase the amount of news organizations, but it made room for new forms of entertainment too. Youth feel at ease zapping from station to station and “snacking” on bits of news, gaining superficial knowledge of a broad variety of topics. Unlike older generations, accustomed to postponing their news needs until a fixed hour of the day, young people prefer to get news instantly whenever they want it (Costera Meijer, 2007). Online the youth drown in plenty of information and entertainment. This competition, coupled with the drive to cut costs, has increased the prominence of particular news formats.
According to Reuters television entertainment has embraced the rise of digital media making good use of online video viewing driven by video-sharing sites, video-on-demand services, and the integration of video into social media sites while it is less clear that television news has found its place in the digital media environment (Reuters, 2016a). A limited number of new players, like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and platforms like Facebook and YouTube, are currently leading the move towards a video-enabled internet and while there are impressive experiments with long-form, in-depth content, shorter clips, and various modes of distribution, no one seems to have found the right recipe for online video news or IPTV news. None of the platforms and on-demand services that dominate online video focus on news (Reuters 2016a). One of the consequences is that the youngsters who find their way through the internet are appreciating new media forms more (Reuters 2016a). NIET KRITISCH GENOEG
1. NEWS AND ITS VALUES
What is news?
An emerging theme in the literature is the definition of “news”. EVEN EEN DEFINITIE VAN NIEUWS The tradition of journalism and how it legitimizes itself has to a certain degree changed through time. Michael Schudson puts the birth of the modern concept of “news” to the so called ‘penny press’ in the 1830’s. These newspapers covered political news, both foreign, domestic, and local, as well as reports from the police and courts, and private households (Schudson 1978: 22-28). Very late in the same century they started covering the news in a more ‘scientific’ way, where facts would become more important, but it was common to 'spice' the stories with fictitious remarks in the nonessential parts (Kalvo 2015) (Schudson 1978: 79-80).
In the late 1800’s two distinct models of journalism started to emerge: the story model and the information model. On the one hand, it was believed that the primary task of the news was to create satisfying aesthetic experiences that would help people interpret their own lives and social surroundings. On the other hand, there was the ‘unframed’, ‘pure’ information whose chief purview was to be quickly verifiable by the reader, as well as to be very ‘understandable’ in its writing (Schudson 1978: 89-90). This ‘decontextualized’ form of news has become the norm in today’s mainstream media, as it is the information model that has become associated with ideas of fairness, dispassion, and objectivity (Kalvo 2015).
After World War I the term objectivity came into use (Schudson 1978: 122). There was the belief that the objectivity could only be truly objective if it was handled in a professional manner. Following Eide: that a simple belief in facts, was now replaced with a trust in rules and procedures made for a world where facts were subject to doubt, and that the emergence of objectivity was a “methodological technique, but also as a legitimizing professional ideology” (Eide 1992: 39). According to Ayodele (1988): “objectivity is the state or quality of not being influenced by personal bias, prejudice, feelings and opinions. Objective news-reporting is that which is devoid of inferences, judgment and slanting.” Objectivity in journalism is all about stating the obvious devoid of personal emotions and bias. It is more like saying or writing it as it is and not what the journalist will like it to be (Umeogu et al, 2012).
Criteria for objectivity
Even though Michael Schudson (2001) acknowledges that in the 1930s, “At the very moment that journalists claimed ‘objectivity’ as their ideal, they also recognized its limits” (p. 164), he argues that objectivity has remained “the moral norm American journalists live by in their professional lives, use as a means of social control and social identity, and accept as the most legitimate grounds for attributing praise and blame” (p. 167). In 1972 Gaye Tuchman wrote that the idea of objectivity is impossible. She sees objectivity as a strategic ritual for journalists to protect themselves. In her article from 1972 she writes:
To a sociologist, the word 'objectivity' […] invokes philosophy, notions of science, and ideas of professionalism. It conjures up the ghosts of Durkheim and Weber, recalling disputes in scholarly journals concerning the nature of 'social fact' and the term 'value free'. […] To journalists […] the term 'objectivity' stands as a bulwark between themselves and critics (Tuchman 1972: 660).
She provides five strategic procedures as the formal characteristics of a news story; (1) presentation of contradictory or conflicting possibilities; (2) presentation of supporting evidence; (3) using quotation marks to indicate that the journalist is not the one making the truth-claim; (4) structure information with important facts first, known as the inverted pyramid; and (5) separating fact from opinion. Using these formal procedures the journalist can protect himself by invoking objectivity (Tuchman 1972). These procedures are also visible in television news.
For Tuchman it leads to a number of problems like journalist’s selective perception, the mistaken insistence that facts speak for themselves which may promote the journalist’s own opinions. (Tuchman 1972: 676). In her view the procedures a journalist uses to affirm his or her objectivity are always in danger of making them biased. This idea that ‘pure’ objectivity is impossible holds a strong position today and most journalists are well aware of their own subjectivity and the potential problems it presents (Kalvo 2015).
Calcutt and Hammond (2011) criticize Tuchman's belief. They point out that it is logically inconsistent to criticize journalistic objectivity for failing to be objective, while at the same time argue that objectivity is impossible (Calcutt and Hammond 2011: 23-24). Instead they argue another understanding of objectivity, one where subjectivity is not merely reduced to personal opinion, but where subjectivity is something inherent in the human consciousness (Calcutt and Hammond 2011: 19). Calcutt and Hammond believe that the collective application of these subjective processes is where objectivity arises in the first place. The reporter’s job is to shape something on the basis of an event – which is initiated by an actor – into a text for the reader. To do this it necessarily needs to go through a filter – the journalist. Thus, to qualify as journalism it needs to capture the essential character of the original event, transforming it through their own subjectivity. Objectivity is therefore still the ultimate goal of journalism, they believe, where it strives to produce something that is external for all three subjects (actor, journalist, reader), and attempts to capture the essence of the object they seek to describe (Kalvo 2015).
The rise of New Journalism
The nom of ‘objectivity’ and its traditional conventions were soon also challenged by new forms of reporting. Already in the 1930’s a form of subjectivity arose, called ‘interpretative reporting’, which sought to give more ‘substance’ to the news. Curtis MacDougal argued that the United States had been unprepared to understand both the First World War, as well as the Great Depression, because the wire services and newspapers had only reported what happened, not an interpretation of why it was happening. This was, however, not inconsistent with the aim of objectivity, but was a move towards a more interpretative journalism (MacDougal in Schudson 1978: 147).
In the 1960s and 70s the New Journalism gained greater publicity. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism. The movement challenged the boundaries of traditional journalism and nonfiction writing. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction and emphasizing "truth" over "facts," and intensive reportage in which reporters immersed themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them. It contradicted the traditional journalism where the journalist was typically "invisible" and facts are reported as objectively as possible (Reynolds 2012: 56).
Latter writers saw language as something that constructs meaning, rather than the other way around. So as opposed to the belief that ‘objective’ reports is a “natural” statement of “the way things are”, the New Journalists thought that our understanding of the world is constructed through interrelated symbolic structures, which in turn constructs our social reality (Eason 1981: 126). This can perhaps be said to follow an understanding close to that of Calcutt and Hammond, who believe that objectivity is a natural process of our interrelated subjectivities, which may be achieved if the ‘essential character’ of an event is captured (Kalvo 2015).
In his anthology from 1973, Wolfe and his co-editor E.W. Johnson set out to capture what he called the ‘unique power’ of realism. One of the devices is that of capturing symbolic details which encapsulate the subject and situation, which can be aspects like gestures, habits, manners, and descriptions of other details in the scene that would usually be overlooked. The reporting should nevertheless always be true and accurate and based on facts. Using narrative to a greater extent should not dissuade the reporter from diminishing the story’s truth value (Eide 1992: 43). Nevertheless, Eide remarks the truth value of New Journalism: “in New Journalist works the use of literary devices in their reports are both intended and conspicuous. This perhaps, makes it easier to be skeptical towards the truth value of these texts, than is the case in the sober, ‘objective’ news stories” (1992: 45).
He considers it though a precondition that the literary journalist plays with his cards open. So in the New Journalism, the reporter will often clearly mark his/her own personal imprint on the story, while the ‘mainstream’ reporter would often do his/her best to hide whatever influence the reporter had on it. Therefore for the New Journalist, the reporter may well communicate his/her own subjectivity, but can never alter factual conditions to suit it. If one is to truthfully unearth a hidden reality of strains and structures of life, to “understand other people’s worlds from the inside out and to portray them as they understand themselves”, as Harrington (1997) puts it, one need invariably to stick to the facts.
The New Journalism has had a strong influence for many journalists on their self-understanding. As a reaction to the complex and fragmented social reality which was present in the US in the 1960’s, one could argue that the basis of these ideas was far from new. What we so often see as a two-sided quarrel between ‘story’ and ‘information’, or between subjectivity and objectivity, are merely two sides of our human consciousness and our common search for knowledge (Kalvo 2015).
2. NEW FORMS OF JOURNALISM
Traditional Journalism
It is a common place praxis within ‘mainstream journalism’ that the journalist should go to great lengths to hide him/herself within the story and to leave as few footprints a possible, which previously were thought to heighten the sense of objectivity for the audience. Even though it is generally accepted among journalists today that objectivity is not attainable, and has been replaced with other ideals, the authority of the objectivity ideal is still maintained. No matter how emotionally attached the journalists were in any given situation when collecting the facts, they can later be ‘filtered’ through the professional ethos to become as detached as is required to be viewed ‘objective’. It can therefore be said that the method does much to mitigate many of the values a journalist may have in any given story.
With the selecting and editing of material notwithstanding, video journalism does not have the same capability to retroactively alter the way the journalist presents itself in the situations that is recorded. That being said, in for example TV news, it is very rare to show a journalist who presents much more than the ‘cold’ facts. This is usually the consequence of using a specific mode of representation that distances the journalist to be a detached observer, rather than an attached participant. It is this type of journalism that has been criticized by scholars to be interesting for the youth.
Immersion Journalism
Twenty years ago the main idea was that journalists could better connect with the youth by offering a more subjective framework in place of “the sterile ‘objectivity’ of modernism” (Barnhurst and Wartella 1991: p. 208). Wolfe’s ‘manifesto’ of the New Journalism was one of the best known examples of a new form of journalism that is now called “immersion journalism”. It is a freer form of reporting than what is often shown in traditional media. Immersion Journalism is to a large degree free from the norms and conventions which are essential to traditional journalism. It is a much more subjective form of reporting, rejecting the ritualized objectivism of the ‘information model’, which arguably makes it a stylistically freer form. However, Immersion Journalism still needs to be fair, factual, and accurate, and to follow the principle of doing no harm, as well as being publicly accountable for their reporting.
It can be said that Immersion Journalism distinguish itself from traditional journalism by its search for more underlying meanings, attempting to contextualize the story it is reporting on. These can be said to take two different modes, one that is realistic, describing the experiential qualities of a situation; or it can take the form of a constructed reality, in the sense that it relies on interpretation and introspection. The realistic mode conveys to the audience a more external reality –what happened, how it happened and so on; while the interpretative mode conveys an internal reality of the reporter or subject –how an event was experienced by someone. The modes can be used to varying degrees and both can be present in the same text, changing modes as the situation or context demands it.
It can thus be argued that Immersion Journalism is a highly personalized form of reporting. A consequence of this can be a great variation in degrees of quality. In the same way as mainstream news journalism, the main legitimizing factor in Immersion Journalism is the quality of its reporting. Therefore it is perhaps easier to ‘fall short’ as a reporter in Immersion Journalism, than it is in the more ‘ritualized’ mainstream which relies more on established conventions. As such, if one were to view it in a spectrum between journalism as an artistic act or as ‘industry’ on the other hand. The perhaps most obvious thing about Immersion Journalism, is how the reporter immerses him or herself in the story being written. This usually requires a greater use of time in the reporting than is normally done, although the time aspect can however vary to a large extent, as well as the degree of immersion. VICE is a great example of an organization that has embraced this style of journalism.
Comical & Combatant (opinionated) Journalism NOG HERSCHRIJVEN
By following some journalistic conventions and frequently labeling their programs as “News,” producers of opinionated news manifestly imply they are in the business of journalism (Peters, 2010). However, although producing high-quality news is the main goal for traditional news media, the coverage of politics and current affairs is mainly a tool to entertain and attract niche audiences for opinionated news media. Hence, these shows operate according to different standards and employ other storytelling devices. By producing ideologically charged news, these programs attempt to generate relationships with a likeminded audience and hope to appeal to social needs of belonging to a community (J. P. Jones, 2011, pp. 48 – 75 ). Not constrained by journalistic norms, the point of departure in opinionated news producers' search for truth is their own beliefs and those of their target audience (Baym, 2013). Consequently, opinionated news is often biased in its news coverage (e.g., Feldman, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Leiserowitz, 2012).
Placing less of a premium on standards as objectivity, fairness, and accuracy, opinionated news instead takes the raw materials of public life and transforms these into compelling social drama (J. P. Jones, 2012). Such appealing drama is created by using symbolic language, emphasizing sympathy for the working class, ridiculing opponents, and framing news in terms of polar contrasts such as good and bad, heroes and villains, offenders and victims (Jamieson & Cappella, 2008). Moreover, viewers play an important role in these stories as they are the victims around which many news items are build up (Conway, Grabe, & Grieves, 2007). This strengthens the appeal of opinionated news and reinforces feelings of community among its audience.
Opinionated news not only deviates from traditional news in the ways just described, it also has characteristics that overlap and even surpass political satire programs that are generally understood to be political entertainment. First, the performances of both comedians and opinionated news journalists are grounded in personal opinions. Their convictions guide the interpretation of topics presented (Baym, 2005), which violates the journalistic norm of impartiality. Second, opinionated news and political satire both conflate techniques and intentions of entertainment with those of traditional public speech (J. P. Jones & Baym, 2010). Ignoring the unstated rules of public speech by the inclusion of local and everyday discourse (e.g., emotion, anger, humor), these programs have become more compelling and credible than traditional news (J. P. Jones & Baym, 2010).
Besides these similarities, there are essential differences between the two formats. Opinionated news intentionally labels itself as “news,” whereas political satire programs consciously brand their shows as “fake news” (Baym, 2005). Consequently, satirists have the freedom to deviate from journalistic standards, whereas opinionated news does so while claiming to be journalism. In addition, claims of epistemological certainty are made in opinionated news: This genre does not leave much doubt in its presentation of news. Satire, on the other hand, refuses such attacks on truth and presents a discourse of inquiry and a search for truth (Baym, 2005). Political satirists, thereby, point out that politicians and the opinionated “real” news present “believable fictions,” which actually are just rhetorical appeals of political partisans (Gray et al, 2009). However, changes in media content and style are not limited to the emergence of humorous hosts. Another approach to hosting is to embrace conflict as a way to moderate debates, and aggressive interviews have long held a significant position in news programming.
3. PREVIOUS FINDINGS ON YOUNGSTERS
Society is changing MEER AFSTAND NEMEN
In Schudson’s (1998) classic dutiful citizenship model, citizens are expected to follow the news regularly, engage publicly, via socio-political organizations and movements, and take part of government-related activities like voting in parliament elections. News media are often considered to function as the fourth estate in society: unbiased, impartial and reliable news coverage is believed to be of fundamental importance for a healthy democracy. In contrast to these conventional citizenship notions, young citizens appear to be losing connection with traditional organizations like political parties and mainstream news media (Bennett, 2012; Michelleti & Stolle, 2012; Thorson, 2012). Today’s generation grew up in an individualized society wherein firstly mutual reference frameworks like the nation, the government, and traditional political parties and organizations, have been replaced by personal interests, values, identity and way of living as most important sources of public engagement, especially for young people (Bennett, 1998, 2008, 2012; Inglehart, 1997). It means that the importance of facts over opinion has made place for a society wherein experience and giving meaning to live is more important.
This new form of political engagement is called “life politics” (Giddens, 1991), “lifestyle politics” (Bennett, 1998), or “personalized politics” (Bennett, 2012).
The psychological energy (cathexis) people once devoted to the grand political projects of economic integration and nation-building in industrial democracies is now increasingly directed toward personal projects of managing and expressing complex identities in a fragmenting society. The political attitudes and actions resulting from this emotional work stay much closer to home, and are much less likely to be focused on government. (Bennett, 1998, 755)
As a first important characteristic he calls the shift from collective identity to personal identity as the base of political engagement (Bennett, 1998, 2012). According to Bennett, mutual reference frameworks for political engagement have moved from feeling connected to a country, identification with a political party and attention for national political themes to individual interests, values and ways of living as most important source for engagement. Examples of personal orientation points vary from environmental issues, health, euthanasia, abortion, and job employment to safety, freedom of expression, energy and oil prizes, public transport, food safety, social inequality and gender equality (van Cauwenberge 2015; pp. 16).
As a second important characteristic he names the shift from a collective framework for action for political engagement like voting for a political party or following the mainstream news, to more individual and direct expressions of social engagement (Bennett, 1998, 2012). It expresses itself in individual choices in mainly the consuming sphere (for example: consuming organic food or recycling) and the use of personal digital information and communication technologies, like the internet and social media to express, share and mobilize social engagement outside of the traditional political systems (Bennett, 1998, 2012; Bennett et al., 2011). Costera-Meijer found that for young people getting news is not a goal in itself, but a way to experience the world around them; for example to give meaning to their lives, identify personal values, get the feeling to be part of something or for conversation and inspirational meanings (Costera Meijer, 2007; Huang, 2009). Rather than being disinterested in general cases young people find it hard to link news with the domains of public engagement they experience in their personal lives (Buckingham, 1999).
There is much to say for the idea that mainstream media and their traditional journalistic conventions like ‘objectivity’ don’t fit with this new identity anymore. According to Nijs and Peters this younger generation is 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 state that society is moving towards an ‘experience economy’ (de Haan et al., 2001; Pine and Gilmore, 2000): a society wherein the experience of products has become more important than the product itself. Many topics in standard news programs are hardly appealing to the youth, especially when it regards domestic and international politics, economics or culture (Costera Meijer 96). According to Barnhurst institutional journalism largely feels “irrelevant to their lives”: news items seldom touch on the lives and experience of young people (1998, p. 205).
Dahlgren (2009) shows that social transformations like economic deregulation and globalization have led to a shift in social power: from national political institutions and democratic systems to private corporations and globalized market mechanisms. This has led to a greater distrust in the mainstream institutions, media and ‘objectivity’. Buckingham (1999) found that young people are critical news users who are conscious of the journalistic selection procedures and audio visual editing techniques which are part of the construction of a television journal, and how these production processes unavoidable give a misrepresentation of the reality. They see traditional news media as a part of the political establishment, whereby they are unreliable for practicing the watchdog function (Marchi, 2012). Such inquiries become even more urgent and normatively consequential in light of the dramatic decline in levels of confidence in television news observed in Gallup polling over the past two decades in the United States (i.e., 46% of the public indicated they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in TV news in 1993, whereas only 22% indicated so in 2010). In 2014 only 31% of the Dutch citizens claimed to have trust in the press (CBS 2016). Given that media accountability is often evaluated in terms of media credibility from audiences’ lenses, declining confidence poses a pivotal question regarding media accountability in the new landscape of political media (Vraga et al, 2012).
Barnhurst (2000, p. 51) states: “reporting that consistently covers events from two opposing sides puts journalists in the role of neutral arbiter and leaves citizens out of the decision-making loop, as mere spectators.” According to Hargittai et al (2012), young people have more trust in the Web as a source for news, even though they are also here wary of the accuracy and reliability of some news sources. By combining different perspectives and opinions of different online news sites and blogs, and searching for background information that allows them to put news subjects in context, young people create an information framework that helps them in forming a well-balanced opinion (Hargittai et al., 2012; Marchi, 2012; Zerba, 2011). Instead of staying dependent on the traditional top-down mass media for news, they can communicate themselves and avoid the conventional news agendas (Marchi, 2012). Next to the internet, they rather turn to opinionated and satiric news reporting, existent on online blogs and in satiric news shows. The youth feel that they are more effective in discovering news stories, exposing political wrongs, questioning official actors, and contextualizing news subjects (Marchi, 2012).
The effects of comical and combatant reporting
In light of these changes, a substantial body of work has emerged examining the effects of political humor and satire on perceptions of media credibility and governmental trust.27 Comedic political programs may be appealing in part because of humor’s impact in reducing hostility by distracting and redirecting people,28 allowing hosts to ask pointed questions while maintaining a less-charged atmosphere. Humor not only can diffuse hostility, but also may boost credibility—especially self-effacing humor.29 Humor puts viewers in a good mood that extends to the messenger, especially when the message is dull.30 However, some scholars see detrimental effects of entertainment-oriented political media, arguing The Daily Show negatively affects trust and media ratings among young people because it mocks news media.31 It is possible that a diet heavy in political humor and satire leads to increased cynicism toward news media as a whole, if not the program or the host.
The combative journalistic approach is often characterized as barbaric and combative,32 others see aggressive interviewing as a check against the powerful,33 a role that dispassionate correspondents,34 or entertaining comics,35 may not adequately fulfill. However, the host as combatant also reflects a broader shift, in which structural, economic, and audience conditions have eroded boundaries between news and entertainment.36 Consistent with this, researchers have reported a movement away from traditional interviewing practices toward more combative forms of engagement with guests.37 As a result, scholars such as Clayman and his colleagues have argued that static models of journalism are inadequate to capture the current state of journalistic practice, which has seen the rise of more aggressive assertions by hosts in talk show formats.38 While scholars have begun to consider the impact of incivility on perceptions of credibility, they have not yet considered the role of aggression that typifies the changing media environment.39
News preferences
In contrast to the earlier presented ideas on turning to a more subjective (immersive, comical, combatant) form of journalism to reach the youth, Marchi (2012) points to the need for news organizations to return to the original intention of the concept of journalistic objectivity, which was to distance news from public relations and propaganda, providing the public with information that would allow them to “not only know but to understand” (Schudson, 2001, pp. 162-164). Also van Cauwenberge found that young people thought news organizations were most valuable if they contextualised the news: offering a framework wherein news gets meaning and is understood. In this way professional news makers can distinct themselves from the free snack news that can be found online. For example, she found that the youth liked television news reports that stimulated empathy and understanding the best (ibid., 150).
Van Cauwenberge (2011; 151) adds that reporting on the same news subjects over and over by traditional news media was one of the most prominent reasons for the declining interest in the news in her focus group. She found that the participants in her focus group in first place wanted facts of a news event, but that the context of a news event gave meaning to the news. This context determined if news was 1) understood, 2) seen as objective, and 3) experienced as credible. The importance of the context for news was linked to the critical attitude the young people had towards the relevance and objectivism of national, mainstream news reporting (cf., Buckingham, 1999; Costera Meijer, 2007). She also found that the youth understood stories better as evolving, intertwined stories than separated stories and that more traditional news users found images – mostly television reports – not only effective in creating involvement with the news, but also crucial for understanding how a news happening had happened (van Cauwenberge 2015, pp. 112).
Furthermore, Costera-Meijer found incentives that made the youngsters watch a certain program or item. First, she found that although the youngsters in her study did like the information function, their main interest lied with entertaining and humorous content. Several researchers already found a positive link between ritual motivations, like escapism, pastime, and entertainment motivations, and the usage of television and online news (Althaus & Tewksbury, 2000; Diddi & LaRose, 2006; Vincent & Basil, 1997). According to Costera-Meijer, youngsters made no essential difference between entertainment and information. In both cases, ‘‘fun’’ or ‘‘interesting’’ was a precondition to keep on watching a particular program. They felt that serious information did not automatically exclude humour or a light tone (ibid., 103). Getting a so called ‘‘aha’’ experience was a second incentive. Costera-Meijer found that information should be new, fun, exciting, odd or harsh; a program should have some ingredient that impresses, surprises, amazes or shocks them. After all, she found that regular topics provide little incentive for starting a chat with friends (Costera-Meijer 102). This curiosity also attracted the youth to programming that allows them to identify with views and lifestyles in other cultures or countries. They wanted to empathize and understand how other people live and what motivates them. She found that for most young adults information has more impact when it comes in terms of personal experience (ibid., 103)
It adds to another point Marchi explains: today, as young people study, work, and live amidst more racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and political diversity than ever, they don’t accept news coverage from one single ‘objective’ point of view anymore (Marchi 258). According to Costera-Meijer the youth want ‘multivocality’, different voices not opinions: they don’t want to follow a particular incident or news fact, but they want to experience the news, they have 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, Costera-Meijer calls ‘‘bodysnatching.’’ Young people like to be able to imagine the exact situation of the terrorists who flew into the Twin Towers (ibid, ).
However, Irene Costera Meijer (2007) found that professional news values like objectivism and independence are still important for young news users in the Netherlands. She found a “double viewing paradox”: “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” (Costera Meijer, 2007, p. 105). This double viewing paradox is being declared from the associations the young people had with “news”, from which entertainment was rather associated with ‘fake’ news, while “real” news was associated with traditional journalistic values (Costera Meijer, 2007). They did not appreciate the ‘‘soapification’’ of news, making it more fun and appealing to watch as a goal in and of itself (Barnhurst and Wartella 1998). Youngsters wanted news to address major issues, to be reliable and not to be made more entertaining. This means that the news is presented in a serious way, and that it is true, objective and reliable (Costera Meijer, 98).