Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow’s Nest
By Makenna Wozniak
In an ever-developing age of social media, the present generations and those to follow experience a different exposure to breaking news than those from the start of the century.
Looking back even 20 years, audiences received news differently, from physical newspapers to broadcast television. Now, audiences receive breaking news in the same feeds as memes and recipes.
This impact does not go unnoticed.
“The line between information and entertainment had been weakened or blurred,” said Mark Walters, department chair of the Digital Communications and Multimedia Journalism program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Being in the journalism field for roughly 40 years, Walters has seen the shift from a vertical hierarchy – where editors reported to an editor-in-chief with many hands touching the story before publication to a horizontal structure where editors directly publish stories on social media.
“It’s gone from a presumed authority to a kind of complete acceptance of things,” Walters said.
“You’re competing against so many other bits of news that you’ve got to give yours an edge. Well, how are you going to do that? By making it more accurate? Maybe not. By making it more sensational.”
Justin Martin, a journalism professor at USF, has been in the field for roughly 20 years. In his career, he conducted the “Life in Media Survey,” a study including 11- to 13-year-olds in Florida, surveyed between Nov. 2024 to Dec. 2024.
The survey was a comprehensive analysis of digital media use and wellness among young adolescents. It examined smartphone ownership and use, social media use, gaming, news consumption, streaming, cyberbullying, depression, sleep deprivation, anxiety, and other topics among a statewide sample from Florida.
While 82% of the students who indicated that they enjoyed using social media said they get their news through social media, 57% said they don’t.
As for the usage of news apps as a whole, per the survey report, “30% of kids in the sample said they never use news app(s), the highest such percentage for any of the app categories we queried.”
There was a common observation amongst older students in which they received their news in-person from family and friends whereas younger students did not. It seemed there was an even amount of those who received news through teachers, coaches, and mentors for both younger and older students.
Beyond the survey, Martin felt that news via social media is more of a starting point to draw readers in.
“I would encourage young news consumers to find news organizations they trust and then follow that more expanded coverage from the social media posts that they see on the platforms to start with,” Martin said.
Martin’s sentiment ties into an observation from the survey in which students were asked what platform would turn to for breaking news. The survey said that while small percentages of kids simply wrote ‘the internet or ‘Google’ the majority named well-known news outlets like CNN, FOX News, BBC, ABC, or NBC.
Martin believes that credible news organizations are more careful with what they post on social media to avoid misinformation, whereas non-credible news organizations do not care to hold themselves to those same standards.
Current college students commented on the exposure they have with breaking news in their everyday lives. Freshmen Ari Braverman, Thomas Pera, and Annalise Nash gave their opinions and experience with the topic.
While the three students all use social media daily throughout their week, all three students engaged with breaking news via TikTok and Instagram. Pera and Nash both engage with the news via news organizations’ online websites.
Additionally, while growing up, all three students said they watched the news on TV; however, now they get their news via app or social media. “I have a news app,” Nash commented.
Pera also engages with the ABC app to receive most of his information. However, he and Braverman both added that the first source they see breaking news from would be TikTok.
The sources they see the information from vary. “I hear it from random people, and I actually look it up if it’s interesting,” Nash said.
“Yeah, for breaking news I have my news app, but I usually hear it on TikTok,” Pera added.
While some news organizations have social media accounts they share news on, third party sources tend to be the first to break the news, whether it be a compilation of sources used that they discuss in a video, a joke referencing the event or topic, or simply someone’s opinions on the matter.
When asked who he hears his news first, Braverman said, “Usually, it’s first the news [account] but then I see people making memes about it because our generation can’t take anything seriously.”
The three students agreed that for the most part they trust the sources they see and only go beyond the initial source to do further research if the topic interests them.
While the results from the students are relatively comparable and similar to those of the survey, there is a degree to which it would seem that age and the circumstances with which one grew up truly impact their consumption in news, whether it be via social media or a credible news organization’s website/app.
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Written by: Makenna Wozniak on October 21, 2025.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier
