'If It Matters to You, Then It Can Count as News': The Personal Needs and Agency Shaping Teen News Definitions

Abstract

This article explores the news experiences of a small group of Australian 13–17-year-olds to understand how they define the news. The focus group analysis presented here suggests the teen participants define the news using both standard journalistic newsworthiness criteria and definitions that stretch beyond journalistic conventions. Significantly, the study found that because of the sheer amount of news and myriad ways of accessing it, these teens perceive the news as ‘individualised’ because they not only define news in relation to themselves, but also as an extension of their own needs and agency. Among the older focus groups, the concept of news also extended to an individual potentially being part of the news process, whether by blogging or sharing news via social media. Framed through Potter’s model of media literacy (2004), these insights can be used to inform the development of Australian news literacy frameworks and offer evidence that supports and feeds into wider international debates on teens, news literacy and empowered citizenship.