Youth News Perceptions and Behaviors Online

The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in the new information ecosystem, both as a repository of information and in terms of its actual usage. In combination with structural shifts in how information, knowledge, and entertainment are created, distributed, accessed, and re-used, data points suggest that we are at an important point in time to better understand and study how children and young people think about news, what their news habits and preferred news sources are, how they create, share, and otherwise interact with news, and discover what emerging news genres are – such as memes. Utilizing qualitative methodology, this study seeks to fill the existing gap in understanding by examining children and young people’s interactions with online news. The study will focus on the perceptions and behaviors by particularly vulnerable youth around the world. These often marginalized communities include, but are not limited to, youth in rural areas, LGBTQ youth, ethnic and racial minorities, youth with disabilities, and girls and young women.