News Appropriation in Times of Social Media

On the one hand, the multitude of information and entertainment options on the internet facilitates access to news and creates alternatives to traditional formats. On the other hand, this diversity can, under certain circumstances, lead to users being overwhelmed and can be a source of misinformation. The concept of fakenews plays an important role for internet users, especially with regard to the credibility of internet contributions. Therefore, the critical handling of news content and the desire for media literacy is becoming more and more important for many people. Through the emergence of so-called "hybrid realities", a non-separation of real and digital life, the form of appropriation of news and the processing of information seen and read is changing, among other things.

But what exactly does the usage behaviour of young people look like in relation to news? How do young people consume, share and create posts and news content? And what influence do influencers, the multitude of social media platforms and individual design options have?

Findings on these and other questions were obtained in a first step through an online survey with 779 participants. Young people between the ages of 14 and 19 were defined as the target group. In the second step, a channel analysis of various social media accounts was carried out. News channels of the public broadcaster and other journalistic institutions as well as influencer accounts were observed, analysed and evaluated over a period of 14 days.

The central results of the survey study can be found in the presentation.