Over 400 delegates from 35 countries attended the internationally renowned 20th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Research (AoIR) in October in Brisbane (Australia).
Uta Rußmann presented her first thoughts and findings of a project she is conducting together with Andreas Hess on trust, digitalization, media use and young people in Austria. At the two-day YCC-Symposium on “Trust, Young People and Digital Media”, Uta Rußmann critically discussed the symposium’s topic from an ‘Austrian perspective’.
Uta Rußmann and Andreas Hess’s presentation at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Association of Internet Research (AoIR) focused on “News consumption and young people’s trust in online and social media”. Young people in Austria are using a mix of online versions of traditional news media such as social media, news portals, and WhatsApp to gather news. Rather surprising is that albeit a certain media skepticism among young people in Austria, they rely on social media such as Facebook, push notifications of traditional media, ‘news find me’-reception as well as peer recommendations via WhatsApp for their news. There is a widespread consensus that more dubious content (fake news) is circulated on social media than offline. However, when coming along dubious content online, they often just go on Google for clarification…!
Next year: AoIR Dublin!