‘It’s said that Gen Z is the future. Actually, they are the present – and the numbers show this: GenZ now makes up 1/3 of the population, and next year they will represent more than a quarter of the workforce. There’s no way around this; we need to engage Gen Z.’ – Danish journalism lecturer Aslak Gottlieb, on how NewsArcade’s new Author Tool can help newsrooms reach this influential generation.
Globally, newsrooms are in crisis. Diminished revenues, diminished audiences and ongoing digital threats demand urgent attention. Yet the demographic that can shift news media negatives into positives – digitally-savvy Gen Z – has been largely ignored.
“‘It’s said that Gen Z is the future. Actually, they are the present – and the numbers show this: GenZ now makes up 1/3 of the population, and next year they will represent more than a quarter of the workforce. There’s no way around this; we need to engage Gen Z.” Danish journalism lecturer Aslak Gottlieb told a packed World Editors Forum session on How to Sell Your Journalism to News Avoiders at WAN-IFRA’s 75th World News Media Congress.
Earlier in the session, Gen Z representatives had weighed in on their new preferences, and presented 7 Global Youth News Values, named the Copenhagen Criteria, to provide guiding values for news producers seeking to reach young audiences.
These values had been determined, by vote, after a comprehensive Global Youth News Lab workshop, developed and presented by Gottlieb.
The workshop comprised global news editors, partnered with 70 students from the International People’s College, a traditional Danish Folk high school that boasts a current cohort of students from over 30 countries.
These values align, largely, with the needs of global news audiences, according to the latest Digital News Report, released last week, which showed that: “News that satisfies the basic needs of knowledge and understanding is deemed very or somewhat important by two-thirds (65%) of the population. News designed to help people with doing something is seen as important by 55%, and news designed to help people feel something is the least important driver (50%) – but still deemed important by half of all respondents.”
Who is Gen Z – and why do they matter?
Digital Natives – the first generation to grow up with the internet and mobile connectivity as a feature of daily life – Generation Z is the world’s largest generational cohort, making up 32% of the global population.
Also known as iGeneration, Zoomers, and post-Millennials, they’re born between 1995 and 2010, and aged between 14 and 29 in 2024. Their views are shaped by their unique experience of a post-pandemic world undergoing climate change, rapid technological innovations, shifting politics, economies in crisis, and wars captured live, in realtime.
They’re also known as the ‘Activist Generation’: always connected, well informed, using online platforms to stay in touch and amplify their voices.
And, according to a McKinsey study, the attitudes and actions of Gen Z, or ‘True Gen’ are “anchored in a search for truth.”
With a collective disposable income expected to reach $33 trillion over the next decade, and with them making up 27% of the workforce by 2025, Gen Z represents a vital demographic for all industry sectors – particularly the business of news.
So how to get them to consume News?
In Public Perspectives on Trust in News, an extract from Reuters Institute’s latest Digital News Report, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen writes: “The challenge for news media with this part of the public is to overcome the distance and convince them that news is engaging, interesting, and valuable enough to spend time with – and on that basis perhaps over time earn their trust as well.”
Gaming on a connected platform
There are many guides, ideas and learnings on countering new avoidance. Gaming, says Gottlieb, offers another solution. Games are massively popular, and research has shown the multiple positive benefits <see graphs below>.
“Games can help us solve problems, an important objective of journalism,” notes Gottlieb, who says research on the subject revealed five key values, or user requirements:
1 Empower me to become an informed and responsible citizen by keeping me updated on the news
2 Engage me in a game experience while I consume real world news I would like to follow
3 Educate me in identifying quality information by taking me behind the scenes in the newsroom
4 Create shortcuts for me to understand the current affairs that affects my life
5 Connect me to a news environment of inspiring people and peers
How it works: Authoring a new narrative
The only game on the market based on real, evolving news, The NewsArcade Authoring Tool will curate a diverse collection of news articles from trusted sources across different domains.
Stories are gamified, with a challenge to the user. As the genre is interactive, the user decides on story angles, sourced quotes, headlines and images, as illustrated below:
The game is embedded in, and adapted to, news media websites and, adds Gottlieb: “It’s based on the same journalistic principles as daily newsrooms, with verifiable research and trusted sources – and some of the algorithms in the game are actually based on news values.”
These news values – based on the Copenhagen Criteria – are provided too, but publishers have the flexibility to use their own.
WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxlTd5z2d-A
NewsArcade-Seriously Play the News is co-funded by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency as part of Creative Europe- Media and involves eight partners from five European countries.