Comparing children's and teens' news engagement practices and affective news experiences

Studies that examine the news engagement practices of school students usually examine children or teenagers, and this precludes an examination of the similarities and differences between these groups. In 2020, we carried out a nationally representative survey of the news practices and experiences of young Australians aged 8-16 years and we compared the results for those aged 8-12 years and 13-16 years. The findings demonstrate that family is the most common source of news for both groups. Nonetheless, there is a significant shift that takes place as children enter their teen years, whereby they become far more likely to get news online from social media, news websites and apps. The impact of this shift is not straightforward, however. Contrary to our expectations, this development does not appear to increase the degree to which young people say news is important to them and it is not strongly correlated with their self-reported affective experience of news. Overall though, we find that the method young people use to get news and their affective experience of news engagement are significant predictors for their motivation to want to act on or respond to news.