New media formats – Swiss media companies are looking for a younger audience – News

What do young people want from the media? Many media companies are currently asking themselves this question. Sandra Cortesi is one who investigates these questions. She is Director of the Youth and Media Project at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She designed the so-called Youthlab for the “Tages-Anzeiger” and before that for “20 Minuten”.

With the Youthlab, the publisher wants to find out what needs and what expectations young people have of the media brands, be it for the online offers or for the print edition.

Legend:

Scientist Sandra Cortesi works with young people to address social challenges in the digital world.

SRF/Lucia Theiler

The results flow back into the editorial department, but also into Sandra Cortesi’s research work, because the Youthlab is designed in such a way that generally valid statements can be derived from them.

In the youth lab for the “Tages-Anzeiger” a total of 30 young people discussed different questions over 12 evenings. For example, which text formats are popular, how and where young people can be made aware of the newspaper and what content young people like to share on their social media channels. On the last evening of the workshop, the young people discussed how they could be persuaded to pay for content.

However, the primary aim is not to motivate young people to take out a subscription, but to understand which factors are crucial for young people so that later, after their apprenticeship or degree, they can, for example, read the “Tages-Anzeiger” as you Select key medium.

Young people at a workshop during the break

Legend:

Break in the Youthlab: the young participants practically turned the “Tages-Anzeiger” upside down over the course of several workshop evenings.

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Answers crystallized already on the last evening of the Youthlab last December. For example, young people have a different, broader understanding of topicality than a classic daily newspaper, says Sandra Cortesi. Topics such as mental health and personal well-being are in demand.

In addition, due to the Youthlab, the publisher has now launched the Upright Format newsletter, a newsletter with which weekly content from the newspaper is specially prepared and which can be found on the Instagram channel of the same name.

Newspapers as the leading medium are losing importance

How do you introduce yourself to young people? This is a question that other traditional publishers are also looking for an answer to. It has become much more difficult to attract new readers. For example, the “NZZ” states: “Previous generations grew up with the “NZZ” print edition on the kitchen table and were thus introduced to the newspaper at a young age. This is no longer the case with today’s younger generation.”

Media publishers can use the content to establish a relationship with young people so that they can later take the medium with them as a key medium in everyday life.

Research by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) shows that children and young people between the ages of 12 and 14 are still guided by their parents’ media consumption. But in three quarters of households there is a subscription for streaming services and games. Newspapers as the leading medium, on the other hand, are less lying around.

The media companies are therefore trying to tie in with the living environment of young people with specific offers. According to the researchers at the ZHAW, young people between the ages of 15 and 17 are the most open. “The best way to reach them is through their interests and topics. Media publishers could therefore build a relationship with the content for young people and then build on the fact that young people will later take the medium with them as a key medium in routine everyday life,” says Nadine Klopfenstein Frei from the ZHAW.

This is exactly what the traditional publishing houses are already doing.

The “NZZ”, for example, wants to reach younger target groups via the daily “NZZ Akzent” podcast, among other things, and video formats are aimed specifically at younger target groups.

Ringier, publisher of Blick media, has also created special products for the younger audience. The social media channel “Soda bei Blick” on Instagram and Tiktok provides the target groups with news and useful information for their everyday lives. Topics such as nutrition, finance, further education, social affairs, work and consumption are particularly relevant for this target group.

The creators of the format are also young and therefore convey the content at eye level. Apparently that works: 76 percent of the followers are under 25 years old, 62 percent are female, Ringier said when asked by Radio SRF.

CH Media, the publisher of local newspapers such as “Luzerner Zeitung” or “Aargauer Zeitung”, is present on social channels with content for younger target groups. In addition, the Group offers a younger audience access to informative and entertaining regional content via the “Today platforms”. The fact that young people are guided from these platforms to the subscription option for the local newspapers is not the core idea of ​​the platforms, according to a spokesman on request.

Funny and visual content attracts young people

In order to gain insights into what is actually in demand among young people, the publishers rely on surveys or workshops where they come into direct contact with the young people.

The focus is on specifying the specific media brand. Because the preferences of young people are generally known to the publishers. They have been widely researched. Researchers at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) have discovered that, for example, image content is particularly popular with young people.

You cannot win over young people as regular users of journalistic content on your own platform.

“It has to be funny, it has to be visual, it has to appeal to her,” says Nadine Klopfenstein Frei. Above all, however, it had to stand out from the crowd, because young people would follow up to 1000 pages.

The fact that young people are not interested in more complex topics per se is a myth. The challenge for the media houses, however, is that the young people feel addressed.

The Watson news portal provides an example of how this can work.

«Watson» is not talking about young people, but rather about journalism for future generations of media users and usage habits. According to “Watson”, the target group is all those who do not use classic linear mass media such as radio, TV and print. It’s not a question of age.

When asked what traditional media would have to do differently to get young people onto their platforms, Watson editor-in-chief Maurice Thiriet says: “You cannot win over young people as regular users of journalistic content on your own platform, they have other problems. But you can present yourself in the channels and in the forms they know. As soon as they have to pay taxes and vote or vote, they know where to find journalistic content.”

This is exactly what the media houses are already doing.


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