War on Gaza drives rise in news consumption among Gen Z Australians

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News websites
17 Jun 2024 16:00

Gen Z Australians are relying on social media for news updates on the war on Gaza, marking a 3 percent increase from last year.

Pro-Palestinian students protest at Sydney University on March 5, 2024. (AFP)

More young Australians and women are consuming news more than once a day, partly driven by interest in the Israeli war on Gaza.

Researchers at the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre found that over half of Australians (51%) accessed news multiple times daily, a 3 percentage point increase from last year. The increase is even more significant among young Australians and women, with a 5 percentage point rise, indicating growing interest in international affairs, researchers noted.

In his published commentary on the findings, Tim Duggan, chair of the Digital Publishers’ Alliance, noted that people aged 12 to 27 are increasingly interested in news that resonates with them.

“Every generation seems to have a ‘news moment’ that draws them deeper into engagement with wider topics that affect them, from World War II to the Vietnam War, 9/11 to Trump,” Duggan said.

“Gen Z is broadly driven by a deep sense of social awareness, and the horrors of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is this ‘moment’ for the next generation when they can’t look away.”

While interest in international affairs has grown among heavy news consumers, reports of news fatigue have increased among light news consumers. Researchers attribute this to the intense coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the voice referendum, and flooding in New South Wales and Queensland in 2023, which led to a significant rise in news fatigue.

Social media main source of news

In other findings, one-quarter of Australians now rely on social media as their main source of news, with young people and women being the most frequent users.

Social media has become the primary news source for 60% of Gen Z, up from 47% in 2023, highlighting the ongoing international debate about the role and regulation of social media platforms.

The report notes, “Meta’s closure of its news tab and the de-prioritization of political content on Instagram will reduce the visibility of news on these platforms, causing vulnerable groups to miss out on important and reliable information.”

Facebook and YouTube continue to be popular for news, while younger generations increasingly prefer Instagram and TikTok. While mainstream news brands are still popular on social media, gen Z is increasingly turning to so-called ordinary people on TikTok and Instagram, as well as alternative news sources on X.

The report found that the use of mainstream news on X has dropped to 49% (a 13 percentage point decrease), while news from ordinary people has risen to 47% (a 10 percentage point increase).

The digital news report, which has been collecting data for 10 years, identified a significant trend: the number of Australians who cite social media as their main source of news has grown to 25%, up from 18% in 2016.