Exploration of Political News Consumption among Young Adults

Abstract

Political news is quite substantial, and it is even considered as core journalism. It is deemed significant because it affects the attitudes of citizens and political actors at work. The aim of this research is to conduct preliminary exploration of study on media communication pattern of political news among youths. To achieve the objective of this research, the qualitative approach was used by conducting in-depth interviews with 10 young adults who met the predefined criteria. The concept of quality journalism was chosen to observe how media consumption pattern and choice concerning political news are associated with the parameters of quality journalism. Although the current research does not examine media content, the research results show that young adults’ media choice for consuming political news is in line with the parameters of quality journalism. This standard of quality underlies their choices in consuming particular types of media pertaining to political news. Such consideration also serves as a basis for their consumption of political news on social media. A slight difference observed when using social media is that the audience needs to conduct their own verification more actively. Nonetheless, the decision to verify is also based on the reasoning of meeting quality standards. Trust and transparency are aspects that respondents consider as most crucial when consuming political news. Consequently, not a lot of the respondents use social media to access the political news they need.