The taste for news: Class shaping young people’s news use in Sweden
Publication details
| Year: | 2018 |
| Issued: | 2021 |
| Language: | English |
| Start Page: | 133 |
| End Page: | 140 |
| Editors: | Andersson Y.; Dalquist U.; Ohlsson J. |
| Authors: | Lindell J. |
| Type: | Book chapter |
| Book title: | Youth and News in a Digital Media Environment: Nordic-Baltic Perspectives |
| Publisher: | Nordicom |
| Place: | Gothenburg |
| Topics: | Social mediation; Internet usage, practices and engagement; Literacy and skills; Access, inequalities and vulnerabilities; Digital and socio-cultural environment |
| Sample: | 50 young men and women (from 16 up) from different class positions who have grown up in a high-choice media environment in an increasingly unequal Swedish society. |
| Implications For Parents About: | Parental practices / parental mediation; Parental digital literacy |
| Implications For Educators About: | Digital citizenship; Other |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | Stepping up awareness and empowerment; Other |
| Other PolicyMaker Implication: | Role of news and journalism in society; middle-class bias in news media and in the supply of mediated information and entertainment at large |
| Implications For Stakeholders About: | Researchers; Industry |
Abstract
Class matters in terms of the extent to which young people find news relevant and interesting, which news genres they prefer and how much news they consume. When the ability, inclination and motivation to take part in news and journalism are set by people’s class positions we are faced with a pressing democratic problem. Rather than a collective good, journalism and news have become markers of social status and distinction. In this chapter I summarize key findings from two recent publications dealing with the relationship between class and news consumption: "Smaken för nyheter – Klasskillnader i det digitala medielandskapet" (The taste for news – Class differences in digital media landscape) and "Distinction recapped: Digital news repertoires in the class structure". (Author, 133)
Outcome
"1)News consumption and news preferences are connected to class. Access to cultural capital is especially important when it comes to embracing the socially recognized and valued news culture. 2)The ability to manoeuvre in the media landscape in ways that correspond to society’s expectations (that news is interesting and worthwhile, to value knowledge on current affairs and to be able to 'produce an opinion') is shaped in middle-class domains. The lack of news presence in the working-class home and in vocational programmes implies that young people in these positions to a small extent incorporate news orientations and diets that correspond to society’s expectations. 3) The norms surrounding news and journalism (what is 'good' and 'correct' and 'bad' and 'incorrect') enable classes to draw boundaries between each other and to legitimate existing class discrepancies." (Author, 137-138)