How to Increase News Literate Behaviors Via Interventions: Eight Guidelines by Early Adolescents

Accessibility

First, news literacy interventions have to be accessible. It should be easy to participate in the intervention and to learn. Therefore, interventions should be as effortless as possible for early adolescents. Because participants are often relatively passive in engaging in activities that they are not already intrinsically motivated for, interventions should be easy to find, or even better, approach them where early adolescents already are. This can be at schools, social media, or at other places and spaces where young people spend a lot of time. News literacy interventions should be facilitated, or even be forced, for example, at school. Some participants mentioned that they consumed more news while in primary school, partly because they watched the children’s news together in class. Further integrating news (literacy) in their curriculum could be one way to increase their news literate behaviors.

More concretely, ideas on making interventions effortless range from guest lectures at school to advertisements in which they are being warned for fake news, or advertisements for a larger intervention at, for example, their go-to coffee place. Interventions should be able to reach both people from different educational levels and those that are not that interested and would therefore not actively seek more information on news.

In line with interventions being effortless, interventions should be approachable. When early adolescents have questions or want to know more, this should be possible and easy. As participants stated: “You have to make critically evaluating news more accessible by making something like a website, a forum” (ID39, male, 15 years). Other concrete ideas relating to this are a free mobile application, or a fact check in the form of an email address they can use to check messages they doubt.

The final component of accessibility is that news literacy interventions should offer clear guidelines. Information should be short and offer easy-to-follow advice on how to deal with their doubts. It should become easy to critically evaluate news, for example, by following a couple of concrete steps: “When you have doubts that you know, I can do this, I can do this and I can do this and then I probably know more” (ID32, female, 15 years). Everyone should be able to understand the information and act upon it. Concrete ideas include a checklist for fake news and a tutorial explaining how to recognize this.

Interactivity

Second, news literacy interventions should be interactive. To truly stimulate early adolescents to critically engage with news, interventions first have to be social. They have to get the idea that other early adolescents also believe it is important:

Well, I think that it is maybe a bit nicer when you already hear something about it, that you have the idea that more people pay attention to it, instead of, for example, only older people. Then you’re like “well you are older, there are more things that you believe are more important while we think those are not [important].” Then you might think “oh that person also thinks it is important, maybe I also have to read about it.” (ID30, female, 12 years)

The goals of interventions should thus preferably not (only) be disseminated by researchers or teachers, but should come from other people of their age or at least be supported by them. As a concrete solution to this, participants raised the idea of working with vloggers or influencers they like, although they were not sure whether they would be right to disseminate news literacy-related goals.

Besides having the idea that other early adolescents support the goals of the intervention, participants stressed that interventions should include interactions with peers. They are thus not only sensitive to what others think, but also want to be able to see what others do or to communicate with others. Concrete ideas include adding a chat function or doing something together with their class.

Next, possibly one of the most important factors is that participants mention that news literacy interventions have to be active. Although they do not want to put that much effort into joining the intervention (see effortless), participants want to actively engage with the topic within the intervention. They emphasize a need for action and/or cognition: “Something in which you can actually do something or think about” (ID42, female, 15 years), which, in turn, might increase the chances of doing something with it later on: “I also think that when you are working on a topic that it makes you think more about it” (ID34, male, 16 years). Active interventions can take many forms: ranging from assignments, to a mobile application including games, to “make your own news broadcast,” and to participating in polls.

A final factor that could increase interactivity is the addition of competition. Like the participants mentioned when discussing the difficulties of interventions for early adolescents, it may be hard to intrinsically motivate this group. To have a chance to be successful among early adolescents, they suggest that a news literacy intervention should include a competitive element and maybe even a chance to win something. This can be anything, from “honor,” to “chocolate” or “extra credit points.” Nevertheless, they agreed that to work as an intervention, it should be as intrinsically motivating as possible. People should learn something instead of only focusing on trying to win, but adding competition can increase early adolescents’ engagement with the intervention and news literate behaviors.

Tailored content. Finally, the content of the intervention is important. When a news literacy intervention includes actual news, this has to be up to date and personalized for early adolescents: “it should take into account what we like” (ID10, male, 13 years), such as sports or events that are directly relevant to them, like school strikes. At the same time, an intervention should not risk becoming one-sided or only focus on the kind of news that interests them, as they stated that interventions should also stimulate a broad news repertoire. They thus want an intervention to appeal to them, gaining their interest by relevant and up-to-date information, but at the same time, stimulate a varied news diet.

Most importantly, participants mentioned that the content should be fun. Although some educational programs can be fun, “others are very boring” (ID12, female, 14 years). This does not have to mean that it is not serious and about news, but participants stressed that this information can also be brought more engagingly. They compare this to their news consumption: they prefer (daily) talk shows over the regular television news broadcasts, because these are more engaging and “fun” to watch. They stated that disseminating information in a nonconventional way—such as higher paced and using humor like in talk shows—can “also lead to a stronger bond with the person you want to reach” (ID50, male, 16 years). Interventions have to show that (some) news is not boring. It has to be funny, original, and lively. At the same time, it should not be too childish or try to be funny when it is not.

More concrete ideas include adding game elements, comics, quizzes, a play, and videos. They would convey news literacy knowledge in a way that fits their everyday media use. A video could, for example, concretely “show what is real and what is not” (ID3, female, 12 years), and a play could do the same: “that you show how something really happened and then, for example, someone who plays as if he is in the news and makes something completely different out of it” (ID6, female, 12 years). These more out-of-the-box ideas show participants’ preference for nonconventional interventions that really grasp their attention and might even entertain them. News literacy interventions should not merely be pedagogical lessons, but go a couple of steps further to really enthuse them for behaving in a more news literate manner.