Between reflective evaluation and opinion-finds-me News-YouTubers' role in young adults' political opinion-forming process

Sawalha, Nariman und Karnowski, Veronika (2022): Between reflective evaluation and opinion-finds-me News-YouTubers' role in young adults' political opinion-forming process. In: Studies in Communication and Media, Bd. 11, Nr. 2: S. 186-209

Abstract

With more young adults turning to YouTube for up-to-date news, this develop-ment raises questions about their news usage patterns and, more precisely, their perception of News-YouTubers as a crucial source for opinion-forming. Drawing on concepts of so-cial media information behavior and the heuristic-systematic model, this study provides initial insights into the role of YouTube and especially News-YouTubers in young adults' involvement with the news. Taking their general interest and information behavior in their daily lives into account, we identified high-and low-involved news users based on qualita-tive interviews with German-speaking young adults. While both types of news users ap-preciate News-YouTubers for similar reasons - namely, comprehension, entertainment, and identification - they differ in their opinion-forming processes. Those highly involved in news use News-YouTubers solely to support opinion formation, whereas those with low involvement tend to heuristically process and adopt News-YouTubers' perceptions and opinions. We conclude that low-involved users not only perceive that news-finds-me but also opinion-finds-me.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Kommunikationswissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 000 Informatik, Informationswissenschaft, allgemeine Werke > 070 Publizistische Medien, Journalismus, Verlagswesen
• Sprache: Englisch