Weekly Insights
What church leaders need to know about young people and news media consumption.
Stat of the Day:
74% of Gen Z and Millennials (ages 16 to 40) consume news and information from traditional sources at least weekly (API)
Why it matters:
Though many young people get their news through social media, there remains a strong preference for legacy and traditional news outlets. Despite high levels of political polarization in the U.S. today, this means that most young people are plugged in to similar sources for their understanding of current events.
Churches, especially in the mainline traditions, are predominantly made up of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. Each of these generations has much higher levels of cable news and radio news consumption relative to Millennials and Gen Z (though it should also be noted that Baby Boomers and Gen Xers read print newspapers and online newspapers at higher rates than younger Americans).
If it is the case that political polarization is supercharged by the outlets and sources we read, listen to, and watch, could it be that intergenerational polarization is intertwined with the media forms themselves?
Consider This:
A common refrain from pundits and thought leaders is that young people get all their news from social media, but if nearly three quarters of young people get their news from traditional media outlets, then this refrain is a partial truth at best (young people do get a lot of news from social media in addition to traditional news outlets).
What does it mean for the church if young and old alike largely rely upon traditional news media for their understanding of current events? How might this influence our understanding of political conflict in our congregations? Perhaps intergenerational political polarization has less to do with the sources of information and more to do with the analytical lens each generation uses to interpret and understand those sources.