WAN-IFRA

World Association of News Publishers

WAN-IFRA Search

Total Youth Think explained

Article ID:

20270

Total Youth Think is an approach to staffing, content, platforms and attitudes that places young people at the center of a news publishing company's strategy. WAN-IFRA first defined the approach about a decade ago after noticing common habits of of news publishers who regularly won WAN-IFRA World Young Reader Prizes. Today, its tenets continue to offer useful guidance for innovation. -- Dr. Aralynn McMane, WAN-IFRA executive director for youth engagement and news literacy

“Total Youth Think” is related to the recent emphasis on a group that has been tagged as “Millennials,” but it’s not the same. Publishers need to be wary of the one-size-fits-all solutions that are proposed for such a wide range of life stages. The usual range of Millennials ages starts with people born in the early 80s (now in 30s) to the early 2000s (now in their teens). All are digital natives, but that range includes at least six key life stages that will tell you a lot more: primary school, secondary school, university, first job, first serious romantic relationship, first child, etc.

However, when someone says "Millennials" do this or that, test the statement by substituting "Many people today" and see if the behavior still applies. If it does, then the specific behavior is shared by many life stages of even older adults and younger young people, making it one worth serious attention as a general practice.

The combination of attention to life stages and to important overall tendencies create the core elements of Total Youth Think: a mindset that allows action both specifically and generally about the audience at the right time.

Obviously, delivering news to anyone at this stage in the 21st century is trickier to accomplish than when print was king because new forms of journalism and relationships with audiences are being invented every day.

However, six core tenets “Total Youth Think” that WAN-IFRA has been suggesting since 2007 based on those champions' habits offer a way of thinking that allows the crucial joint exploration of what might come next as a natural way of doing business.

1. Be there with opportunities at life-stage firsts

2. Close the zoo: connect with and treat young people as "normal"

3. Encourage intergenerational staffing

4. Be proactive in the networked buzz

5. Facilitate engagement in the important matters of the day

6. Teach about journalism and support parents and teachers in doing so.

1. Be there for the life-stage firsts. Paying attention to -- and offering solutions -- at the important moments in the lives of community members provides an overall, uniting theme for news publishers who do well at engaging the young. Among one year of WAN-IFRA World Young Reader Prize winners alone, projects involved young people at nearly every age: helping secondary students learn how to perform in a job interview (Germany) and giving them a first lesson in what news would be like without press freedom (Sweden), showing children how fun reading can be (Philippines), providing vocational students with a contest and event that provides their first fame (Netherlands) and letting journalism students invent a cutting-edge news service (The Netherlands). Descriptions of all these winning actions are at www.wan-ifra.org/node/82439

2. Close the zoo. First, do a check on how young people are portrayed. Are they relegated to what researcher and youth community news entrepreneur Chris Sopher calls the “zoo,” with inclusion of "them" only when there is a designated “youth” topic. Is your coverage about children mostly about them as victims and about teenagers as troublemakers, and are the youngest adults, between ages 18 and 25, essentially absent? Get a journalism class to do a simple content analysis for you and then talk about it. WAN-IFRA has materials that can help you do an audit of your portrayal of the youngin including a self audit based on work by Northwestern University's Media Management Center and a content analysis tool for 12-year-olds based on a project that had classes in 24 countries look at how children and teenagers were portrayed in the local printed newspaper. The key is for a local publisher to initiate the research so a conversation can occur afterwards. For details, contact aralynn.mcmane@wan-ifra.org.

3. Encourage intergenerational staffing

Content – the journalism itself – is the only thing we have of any worth and needs to remain the priority, developed in close collaboration with the young. New platforms arrive every day, and connecting constantly and directly with youth can naturally inform about the best ways to use the latest new wizardry. At De Stentor in the Netherlands, for example, journalists found they learned about the newest media trends in digital media simply from having university students working beside them in the newsroom.

At the same time, it's just stupid to think that young people, or people in any one age group, have all the answers. The wisdom comes from the mix. The management has long taken this strategy to heart at Zero Hora in Brazil, which has been retired from the World Young Reader Prize competition because they won too often. Not only do they make sure to have a wide array of ages in the staff, but they have institutionalized the involvement of young people. Usually, they have about 30 students, not counting the considerable number of journalists recently out of school among a total of 200 professionals. "They usually provide us with trends and disruptive ideas, particularly with respect to the digital world and the consumption of content in different platforms," explains editor Roseane Tremea. "In some cases, they work a little like a thermometer agendas and new projects. At the same time, they have the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals. Combining this freshness and fearlessness of youth with the experience of older people is always advantageous for the product and for the" reader.

4. Be proactive in the networked social media buzz

One would expect this section to be long, but will not be because the key is really a process that encourages innovation. First, news publishers who are doing a dynamic youth-centered activity are likely to be, by definition, unusally active the networked social media buzz, if only via the usual social media. However, news publishers who value the input of younger staff about social media strategies are also likely to value a start-up atmosphere and be early explorers of the latest wizardry. With these two elements in place - active presence in social media and a willingness to take advice from younger staff -- the rest can evolve naturally.

The WAN-IFRA 2016 World Young Reader News Publisher of the Year is one example. The R.Age youth content team at The Star in Malaysia has regularly led the way for the company on actions that start with the teenage audience and soon filter to the rest of the audience. Read more about that case here.

Obviously, the quest for innovation in this area is harder than ever given the disruptive forces of both digital giants and solo players. For example, videos from a single Polish YouTuber, "Spider Dog," attracted a far higher audience than any other online or broadcast video content provider and spawned a new video content company for Poland, Lifetube, involving 150 video producers," Harvard Business School researcher Grzegorz Piechota reported in a briefing for WAN-IFRA, he noted that Facebook has now created a special "Lifestage" service for people under age 18 (and that bans older users). "It is completely video driven, more video than Snapchat (which is growing among teenagers while Facebook is declining)."

5. Facilitate engagement in the important matters of the day for both young people and their influencers.

Gazeta Wyborcza, which has also been retired from the World Young Reader Prize competition after winning too often, is among the best examples of this notion. Partly because of its origins as a voice of the opposition, it has always felt a need to lead in causes that matter. But the issues they have supported lately could resonate anywhere: saving a river, helping schools master 21st century teaching tools and giving young people a voice in the country's future. Giving that voice is key. For example Germany’s Nordwest Zeitung won one of our top public service prizes after it spent 2500 Euros so 6180 students from 54 schools could experience an election, ballot boxes and all, with extensive coverage of the process and the result. “We didn’t talk with the politicians", said senior deputy editor Ulrich Schoenborn, “we talked with the students.” And they plan to do it again. Malayala Manorama in India -- where it is rare that a news publisher does NOT have a massive social responsibility programme -- gave young people an even more direct role in the crucal matter of energy use. Malayala Manorama partnered with the regional power company for a contest in which children led in encouraging less power use at home in a three-month contest in partnership with the local power company.

News publishers have more ways than ever to make themselves a trusted partner in the quality education of a child, a crucial matter for any parent. The Philippine Daily Inquirer showed its commitment to basic literacy by arranging 300 memorable and fun storybook readings by inspirational people in 52 cities over the last six years. The Gmünder Post in Germany led a quest, and got the money from a local building supplies store, to help parents repair local kindergarten facilities. The important matter of the day can also be a normal part of life. For example, Leeuwarder Courant in the Netherlands made contests from work students had to do anyway as last-year secondary research papers and end-of-term vocational projects.

6. Help teach about news, and support parents and teachers in doing so.

When 34 journalists were killed while covering a Philippine election, Raia and Ruel Landicho, publishers of two small weeklies in the region of the deadly attack, organized a day of free workshops at their Sinag printing plant to help local youth understand the role of a free press. Ruel said at the time, "We believe that in a time when press freedom is being attacked in our country ... it is important to teach our youth that journalism is a noble profession." They expected perhaps one hundred participants. One thousand attended.

Such publisher commitment to news literacy is essential and should be copied all over the world and long before the crisis pont. News publishers ignore at their peril the need to assure that the newest generations understand and value the difference between professional journalism and other content. WAN-IFRA's report for the American Press Institute gives the latest ideas from around the world for doing so either as individual publishers or in cooperation with national news media associations. Another place to look for ideas is among WAN-IFRA's Centers of News Engagement Excellence, those national associations that have committed to helping teachers and parents guide children in using and navigating the news.