Many years ago, a professor at my college played us the song Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles to illustrate how technological innovations, from Gutenberg’s movable type printing press to WhatsApp, have transformed the way we consume information and therefore shape our public opinion.
Today, 23% of young people between 18 and 24 years old access news through TikTok. With more than 2 billion users Globally, the most downloaded application in the world today captures the attention of millions of young people (70% of its users are between 18 and 34 years old) and reconfigures the way we relate to the news and the world around us. surrounds us. TikTok is the new killer app that defines a whole new era, the rush society: fragmented, superficial and instantaneous.
“If journalism goes into crisis, democracy will too”
For the first time since the French Revolution, new actors outside the world of journalism and its rules structure the public opinion of an entire generation. We went from the Citizen Kane model to the Elon Musk model. This shift in consumption has profound implications for our democracies. If journalism goes into crisis, democracy will too. The relationship between misinformation, new forms of news consumption and the rise of authoritarian ideas among young people is not coincidental. A breeding ground is being created that endangers the generational change of our democracies.
The era of influencers
The consumption crisis of this age group has always been a constant. It is enough to analyze the profile of the general press reader in the 90s, when there was no Internet, to verify that it is still very similar to today; middle class man between 40 and 60 years old.
However, today, news consumption among youth has changed radically. Before, reading a newspaper took about 30 minutes; watch a news program, an hour in front of the television. There was a beginning, an end, a structure, a classification of content by importance and sections. Getting informed today through social networks is a completely rolled over fragmented, directed by a predefined algorithm, largely by the consumer’s own tastes.
For better or worse, with traditional media, all people went through a period of political socialization through them that, although with different levels of involvement depending on purchasing power and age, followed similar guidelines and rules for everyone. .
The big difference now is that there is a digital divide that divides society in two: natives and digital migrants. Young people prefer to consume news on short video platforms such as TikTok or YouTube instead of traditional media because they do not connect or keep up with the pace of mass media journalism.
“Only 37% of young people trust traditional media, compared to 47% of older audiences”
Young audiences tend to avoid news on television not only because it is boring, but because they perceive it as negative. Only 37% of young people trust traditional media, compared to 47% of older audiences.
I wish it was just a formatting issue. We face a bigger problem: a lack of trust and disbelief in the system, which extends to the major media outlets. We’ve moved on from the Oprah Winfrey model—a single endorsement from her in prime time could shake the White House itself—the model Taylor Swift and her already iconic support for Kamala Harris signing as Childless Cat Lady.
Those under 30 years of age have replaced journalists with influencerswhich mix entertainment with politics. At events such as the US Democratic National Convention, more than 200 creators were invited to cover the event. In the USA, the influencer Most cited is Tucker Carlson, known for spreading far-right conspiracy theories. In France and the United Kingdom, Hugo Décrypte and Dylan Page, influencers who defend reactionary ideas, gather more than 20 million followers.
A distracted society is easier to manipulate
What was once presented as a liberating revolution to overcome the fourth estate has led to new forms of control. Román Gubern described television as the “gum for the eyes”, but today social networks have gone further, becoming time thieves and destroying our attention span.
In his work The value of attentionJohann Hari warns about the dangers of a distracted society. He scroll constant network has replaced the old zapping television, and algorithms determine what we see, generating echo chambers that reinforce our pre-existing ideas. It’s as if in a restaurant they always offer us the same menu because they know we like it. It is the cognitive bias that activates our prefrontal cortex, that is, the part of emotions and dopamine. This is a perfect scenario for manipulation.
Cas Mude highlights the relationship between the rise of far-right parties and the increase in misinformation, as it fuels discontent, reinforces its populist narratives, weakens trust in traditional media and facilitates the creation of parallel media ecosystems where its messages can thrive without restrictions.
“In Spain, 75% of Alvise’s voters are under 45 years old”
This phenomenon affects young people in an astonishing way. In Germany, The AfD has tripled its support among voters under 24 years of agegoing from 5% in 2019 to 16% in 2024. In France, the National Gathering account with 34% of the support of voters under 30 years. In Spain, 75% of Alvise voters are under 45 years old (with more than 700,000 followers on Telegram, almost the same number of votes he received in the 2024 European elections).
Nostalgia and authoritarianism as elements of attraction
We find ourselves in a moment in which society looks more to the past than to the future. Some to review – culture woke— and others to idealize it. Of all the stories used by the far right, the narrative of nostalgia and the need to return to a past that, in reality, was never better is one of the most effective.
“Of all the stories used by the extreme right, the narrative of nostalgia and the need to return to a past that, in reality, was never better is one of the most effective”
What is striking is that this story is reaching so much among those who did not even live through that past. This narrative of nostalgia helps reinforce a lost feeling of identity among the youngest, which is combined with disaffection towards institutions and a rebellion towards what is politically correct. Videos like the one from AI-generated AfDs that blames migrants go viral.
This return to the past actually symbolizes the return to a safe place in times of uncertainty. As explained Katharina Niemeyer“idealization of the past risks eliminating nuance and reinforcing political extremism.” What is “Make America Great Again,” after all, other than a tale of America’s return to its glorious past amid its loss of global leadership?
In the USA precisely the young vote majority supports a Harris. Here we clearly see how gender bias operates among youth, as support for the Democratic candidate is particularly strong among young women, with 70% supporting her, compared to 23% who support Trump.
“Of all the stories used by the extreme right, the narrative of nostalgia and the need to return to a past that, in reality, was never better is one of the most effective”
This new trend of ideological division between young men and women comes, in part, from the segregation that the algorithm between “pink brains”, those more exposed to narratives of social justice, feminism and well-being, and “blue brains”, those more exposed to conservative or reactionary contentthus differentiating between hard values for them and soft values for women. Here it is worth asking who really feeds the beast. The revenge of the algorithm feeds on ourselves.
What democracy awaits us?
According to the Democracy Index 2023we are facing a context of democratic withdrawal. Only 7.8% of the world’s population lives in full democracies, while 39.4% lives under authoritarian regimes.
This regression coincides with the increase in the influence of social networks and youth discontent with democratic institutions. In Spain, according to a recent 40dB study 26% of those surveyed say that, under certain circumstances, they would prefer an authoritarian government. With an average age of 40.8 years in full democracies, younger generations show less support for their democratic systems, which calls into question the generational change of our democracies. It is no coincidence that the President of the European Commission herself has established as a priority in this mandate bring the institution closer to young Europeans.
In a context where young people distance themselves from both traditional media and reliable sources of information, public institutions have a crucial role. To do this, I would like to highlight three key ideas that deserve greater attention and depth.
Firstly, the importance of innovation in communication and the search for new formats that connect and attract young people. If there is a tendency to trust people more than large media outlets, greater collaboration between consolidated influencers and new talents, institutions and media to capture the attention of these new audiences. Initiatives like Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) or the program Creative Europe show positive results. Connecting young people with journalism is, in essence, connecting them with democracy.
Secondly, stricter regulation on the use of algorithms and the transparency of digital platforms is essential. This brings us to the old debate about the social function of the media: to inform, educate and entertain.
“In an environment where lying and exaggeration are rewarded, it is essential that algorithms are developed under ethical principles”
The European Union has taken a significant step with the implementation of regulations that regulate them. The recent victory in battle contra TikTok Little It is an example of how institutions can create spaces that promote healthy consumption of information. Even his own Elon Musk has ended up giving in before the Supreme Court of Brazil.
In an environment where lying and exaggeration are rewarded, it is essential that algorithms are developed under ethical principles. Regulating algorithms is, in short, regulating the space where public debate takes place and guaranteeing the right to truthful and plural information, fundamental pillars of any advanced democracy.
Finally, it is essential to encourage critical thinking and participation in democracies as an antidote to emotional manipulation. Here we have the Finnish model, but in countries like Austria—where a party founded by Nazis has just triumphed—formulas are being applied that seek face-to-face contact between young people and institutions as an antidote to digital bubbles. In this case, as almost always, everything starts with education.
Hannah Arendt pointed out that even in the darkest times we have the right to hope for a certain illumination. That light is us. What we do now as public powers and communication professionals will determine that, in the future, no student will have to listen to their teacher talk about a song titled The algorithm killed democracy.
