Media behavior of youth in the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine
-
Author(s)Tetiana KrainikovaLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2132-2020
,
Eduard KrainikovLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3825-9694
,
Tetiana YezhyzhanskaLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4114-7207
-
DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.21511/im.17(1).2021.08
-
Article InfoVolume 17 2021, Issue #1, pp. 94-108
- 939 Views
-
392 Downloads
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine measures have transformed the media agenda. The aim of the study is to identify the behavioral characteristics of the youth news audience, which is formed in the context of COVID-19. To solve research tasks, from March 24 to April 5, 2020, an intelligence survey of young Ukrainians as news readers was conducted. 364 respondents aged from 18 to 29, living in different regions of Ukraine, answered the questions of the Google questionnaire. The results of the survey are qualitative in nature and highlight the trends that exist in the youth audience. According to the data, the topic of coronavirus has become a priority for 82% of respondents. Phobias of young respondents increased: more than 70% stated they were worried and afraid. The alarm response to the pandemic has prompted many media consumers (46%) to turn to more information sources than usual. On the other hand, some media consumers have reduced their contact with the media, which is a typical protective reaction. Uncertainty, suspicion, and anxiety shake the confidence of the youth audience in public institutions and the media. The study showed the emergence of new challenges for media companies. The media should anticipate the consequences of disseminating information, fake news, and adjust content strategies accordingly: compliance with journalistic standards, responsible dissemination of news, fact-checking.
- Keywords
-
JEL Classification (Paper profile tab)I10, M39
-
References25
-
Tables0
-
Figures8
-
- Figure 1. Interest of young Ukrainians in consuming news before СOVID-19
- Figure 2. Interest of young Ukrainians in news consumption during the СOVID-19 pandemic
- Figure 3. Topics of news read by respondents during the СOVID-19 pandemic
- Figure 4. News formats that are most convenient for respondents
- Figure 5. Respondents’ assessment of the completeness of information about the coronavirus in the media
- Figure 6. Respondents’ assessment of the need to provide the media with complete information about the pandemic
- Figure 7. Sources of information that are most trusted by respondents
- Figure 8. Impact of coronavirus news on respondents
-
- Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge.
- Casero-Ripollés, A. (2020). Impact of Covid-19 on the media system. Communicative and democratic consequences of news consumption during the outbreak. El profesional de la información, 29(2), e290223.
- Culver, K. B., & Lee, B. (2019). Perceived Ethical Performance of News Media: Regaining Public Trust and Encouraging News Participation. Journal of Media Ethics, 34(2).
- Drozdova, A. V. (2018). Vizualizatsiya povsednevnosti v sovremennoy mediakulture [Visualization of everyday life in modern media culture]. (Ph.D. Thesis). Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities. (In Russian).
- Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. California: Stanford University Press.
- Gao, J., Zheng, P., Jia, Y., Chen, H., Mao, Y., Chen, S., Wang, Y., Fu, H., & Dai, J. (2020). Mental health problems and social media exposure during COVID-19 outbreak. PLoS ONE, 15(4), e0231924.
- Hütten, F. (2020). Großes Vertrauen in Corona-Forschung. Das Vertrauen in die Forschung ist während. Süddeutsche Zeitung. (In German).
- Klemm, M., & Staples, R. (2018). Leib und Netz. Sozialität zwischen Verkörperung und Virtualisierung. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 194 p. (In German).
- Lázaro-Rodríguez, Pedro, & Herrera-Viedma, Enrique. (2020). Noticias sobre Covid-19 y 2019-nCoV en medios de comunicación de España: el papel de los medios digitales en tiempos de confinamiento // News on Covid-19 and 2019-nCoV in Spanish media: The role of digital media in times of confinement. El profesional de la información, 29(3). (In Spanish).
- McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The agenda setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36, 176-187.
- Meier, S. (2014). Visuelle Stile. Eine sozialsemiotische Konzeptualisierung visueller Medienkultur und konvergenter Design-Praxis (312 p.). Bielefeld: Transcript. (In German).
- Nelson, Jacob L; Taneja, Harsh (2018). The small, disloyal fake news audience: The role of audience availability in fake news consumption. New Media & Society, 20(10).
- Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Situation Report – 13 (2020).
- Pérez-Dasilva, Jesús-Ángel; Meso-Ayerdi, Koldobika; & Mendiguren-Galdospín, Terese (2020). Fake news y coronavirus: detección de los principales actores y tendencias a través del análisis de las conversaciones en Twitter. El profesional de la información, 29(3), e290308.
- Potreblenie novostnoy informatsii sredi molodykh zhiteley krupnykh rossiyskikh gorodov (issledovanie dnevnikov) [Consumption of news information among young residents of large Russian cities (study diaries)] (2020).
- Report on monitoring compliance with professional standards in online media. The first wave of monitoring in 2020. (In Ukrainian).
- Reuters Institute Digital News Report (2019).
- Selye, H. (1976). The Stress of Life. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Selye, Н. (1974). Stress Without Distress. New York: Signet.
- Tolokonnikova, A., Cherevko, T., & Dunas, D. (2017) Aktualnyye kontseptualnyye podkhody k rassmotreniyu protsessa mediapotrebleniya onlayn-novostey molodezhyu [Current conceptual approaches to the process of young people’s media consumption of online news]. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 10: Zhurnalistika – Moscow University Bulletin. Series 10: Journalism, 5, 30-50.
- Wagner, P., & Hochreiter, B. (2016). Digitales Medienverhalten von Jugendlichen eine Genderfrage? Soziales Kapital, 5, 125-136. (In German).
- What does infodemic mean? (2020) Pop culture dictionary.
- Who are the voters who elected Zelensky and voted for Poroshenko – sociologists gave characteristics to the electorate of both candidates. (2019).
- Zhilavskaya, I. V. (2013). Mediaobrazovanie molodezhi [Youth Media Education]. (242 p.). Moscow: Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities. (In Russian).
- Zinchyna, O. B. (2017). Mediasotsializatsiia suchasnoi molodi: vyklyky i vidpovidi [Media socialization of modern youth: challenges and answers]. Bulletin of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Series “Sociological studies of contemporary society: methodology, theory, methods”, 39, 332-339. (In Ukrainian).
