Gisela Reiter and Jana Bernhard from the Department of Communication presented their results on the information behaviour of young target groups at this year’s #YouthMediaLife conference. The conference, held via online platform, took place from 30.03.2021 – 01.04.2021 and has been organised by the University of Vienna.
In their presentation “Information behaviour of young target groups in times of COVID-19 and expectations towards journalists“, Gisela Reiter and Jana Bernhard presented the results of a qualitative study from the phase of the first Corona-related lockdown 2020 in Austria. The study examined the changed media use behaviour in the age group of 18 to 25-year-olds during the beginning of the Corona crisis, and subsequently the attitudes towards journalists in this context.
The evaluation shows: Media use increased strongly among the majority of respondents and especially public service offerings on social media channels were used. In addition, old usage routines were often resumed, such as watching the evening news together on linear television. The attitude towards journalists is mostly positive in this group, even if the concrete knowledge about journalists and media representatives is incomplete.
About 250 international participants took part in the online conference. Interdisciplinary study results were presented with a focus on dealing with increasingly complex networks of digital or analogue media practices and their embedding in the respective lifeworlds.
Further details on the conference can be found at https://youthmedialife2021.univie.ac.at/