Over almost a decade, Lynn Schofield Clark and Regina Marchi have tried to find answers to the growing dissatisfaction of young people in the United States with traditional news media, focusing on high school students from low-income minority and immigrant communities who often feel underserved and misrepresented by mainstream media but epress strong interest in politics and their communities.
According to the authors, young people increasingly see news as something shared via social networks and social media rather than produced and circulated solely by professional news organizations. Their book Young People and the Future of News (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk) advocates their newly introduced concept of connective journalism.
In their last chapter, Moving Forward, Lynn Schofield Clark and Regina Marchi give advice to journalism organizations and journalists. The five possible paths they propose: 1) Focus on enganging youth as citizens, not profit generators. 2) Cultivate connections with local community youth as sources for news. 3) Partner with local community and school news efforts. 4) Train young people as makers of news and news stories about their communities. 5) Train local youth in investigative research, and partner in story production for differing audiences with the aim of solutions-oriented journalism.
As for youth journalism educators and partents, the authors advocate high school journalism programs, the protection of free speech for youth, partnerships across the curriculum, training in social media as part of a broader focus on critical media literacy, a discussion of how codes and algorithms structure the social media young people use as well as the support of policies to address the digital divide, media reform and regulation, the propose the discussion of alternative news sources such as satire and pastiche as educational tools, the discussion of ideological polarization, sponsored content in news spaces, privacy and surveillance, raise awareness about who shapes online conversations of news and politics, include critiques of current news and invite young people to imagine what kind of news might exist instead, connect journalism programs with grassroots organizations and community media.
The authors recognize that we are living in a time in which US public schools have been chronically underfunded while community enrichment opportunities have been drastically defunded, particularly in low-income communities. The authors write of a trust crisis in the United States, the role of media representation in fostering or undermining empathy.
Lynn Schofield Clark and Regina Marchi quote Adam Smith who wrote in the mid-eighteenth century that we all have a tendency to be much more concerned about our own lives than the lives of others. This is why the authors come to the conclusion that it is productive for those working with young people to not only work toward engendering empathy or beneficence, but to also help them recognize the need for compensatory justice.
For the authors, “connective journalism” is the answer. People’s political engagement needs to start somewhere, and starting with taking interest in an issue of personal importance can lead to developing larger political awareness about not just what is happening in one’s own neighborhood, but about what is going on at a national or international level.
The authors write that social media not only lead to echo chambers and filter bubbles but that, according to recent studies, people report being exposed to diverse and ideologically opposing opinions and issues on social media.
Lynn Schofield Clark and Regina Marchi: Young People and the Future of News, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 305 pages. Order the book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.
Lynn Schofield Clark is Professor and Chair of the Department of Media, Film, and Journalism Studies and Director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media at the University of Denver.
Regina Marchi is Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University.
Article added on February 23, 2019 at 14:48 German time.
