News consumption and information needs in the digital age: what does the audience tell us? (panel)

For democratic societies to function, citizens should be well-informed about politics and public affairs. This engagement empowers people to form opinions, contribute to the public debate, decide who to vote for, and hold political leaders accountable. Journalists play a vital role in providing news, which is important for informed citizenship. 

However, the idea that information (only) from various news outlets naturally reaches the public, and is inevitably meaningful, is obsolete. Nowadays, we live in a high-choice (digital) information society in which news consumption patterns have changed and diversified. For example, some people prefer non-journalistic information sources, are critical towards reporting styles, have difficulties navigating through everyday information, or tend to (partially) avoid the news.



This panel session presents research on the information needs and practices from the audience's perspective and, following the call of Swart et al. (2022), moves beyond normative concerns. Questions we will address, but are not limited to, are: ‘What are different types of audiences?’, ‘What information is relevant to them?’, ‘How do people want to be informed?’ and ‘What skills do they need?’. Relevant (innovative) research methods to study different groups and news repertoires will be highlighted. Considering our insights, we would like to discuss the ensuing question in an interactive manner: What are the (new) roles of journalism in the digital age?

The aim of this panel is to provide valuable insights into new information repertoires and needs and pave the way for future research that seeks to contribute to the audience turn in journalism.