What the evidence shows

This report examines how "next generation" news consumers (broadly, people under 25, though the survey spans all ages) discover, consume, verify, and share news, with the goal of helping news producers adapt to audience behavior expected to dominate by 2030. It builds on an earlier Next Gen News study by expanding an original five-mode framework into a more detailed seven-mode "Modes of Engagement" model, split into three discovery ("Sift") modes — Scroll, Seek, Subscribe — and three consumption modes — Substantiate, Study, Sensemake — plus a bidirectional Socialize mode.

The research combines large-scale survey data with in-depth diary studies and producer interviews, aiming to move past the stereotype that young audiences are disengaged from news. Instead, it argues younger consumers are actively, even effortfully, curating fragmented information environments to manage a persistent sense of overwhelm. A secondary focus is on "emerging news producers" — non-legacy creators and outlets — who succeed by reversing the traditional journalism workflow: starting with platform and distribution format, then working backward to story selection.

Its findings on trust, attention, format, personalization, and platform-native storytelling are broadly transferable to any advocacy or public-interest communicator trying to reach younger audiences.

Key Findings

• Daily engagement is high despite overwhelm: More than half of next-gen consumers engage with news at least daily (55% of under-25s across five countries, and higher in some markets), yet a large share also report feeling overwhelmed by content volume; 54% agreed "keeping up with the news should not take up very much time."

• AI's role in news varies sharply by country: Nigerian respondents were far more likely to use AI for news (roughly a third overall, ~40% of under-25s) and to trust it, compared to fewer than 5% of US/UK respondents reporting frequent AI news use.

• Human-created content is still preferred over AI: Majorities across all five countries and age groups agreed they value human-created news more than AI-generated content, though this preference is weaker in Nigeria, Brazil, and India than in the US/UK.

• Trust is built through credibility, affinity, and transparency: Traditional outlets retain the highest trust ratings for factual credibility, while emerging producers build trust primarily through personal affinity and parasocial connection — but audiences remain skeptical of institutional bias in both.

Stand-out data points

• Depth is welcomed when relevant: 65% of respondents said that when a topic interests them, they prefer an in-depth story over a summary — challenging assumptions that young audiences only want short-form content.

• 8x: increase in click-through rates The Hindu reportedly saw after introducing personalized, behavior-timed push notifications — illustrating the ROI of respecting audience routines over generic alerts.

• 34% vs. 17–27%: the most sustainable news publisher types (e.g., "Scale Local") invest roughly a third of costs in Product & Technology, compared to about half that share among the least sustainable publishers in the same category — a strong signal that distribution/product investment correlates with organizational survival.

Examples of how Understories uses this research

• Accessibility Findings on plain language, short-format density, and platform-native design translate directly to accessibility scoring for climate messages aimed at younger audiences.

• Clarity Supports guidance to "lead with the claim/why it matters" and use dense, scannable formats — directly transferable to climate message clarity scoring.

• Credibility Strong source: findings on transparency, credibility, and source verification (Substantiate mode) directly inform how Understories might score source credibility and transparency signals in advocacy messages.

• Emotional Resonance Highlights guilt and moral framing ("you don't want to be seen as the bad one") as a real but double-edged emotional lever — useful context, not a recommended tactic.

• Autonomy Findings on "give control" (audience personalization, opt-outs, transparent labeling of personalized content) support Understories' commitment to traceable, human-controlled recommendations rather than black-box targeting.

• Justice The five-country sampling (Brazil, India, Nigeria, UK, US) offers meaningful Global North/South diversity, though large regions remain unrepresented and findings should not be over-generalized globally.

non-exhaustive

Key quote

"I think you have to be a consumer to be a producer... the textural sense [for a platform]... you can't just read some packet or jump in from nowhere." Chris Hayes, on the Ezra Klein Show, on the necessity of platform fluency for authentic communication.

© 2025 FT Strategies, Knight Lab, or the Google News Initiative — All rights reserved. 

Last update: 16 September 2026

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