Abstract:

Due to the rise of technological and communication platforms transformations, nowadays media literacy generates academic, political and social debates. There is a special concern with the younger generations, as studies document that they express particular behaviors due to the increased diffusion of digital consumption into their daily lives (Boyd, 2015; Castells, 1996; Silveira & Amaral, 2018). In the field of media literacy, news literacy becomes even more relevant today due to the rise of fake news, which is one of the biggest challenges for digital journalism today, because it endangers the truth and instigates misinformation which could have serious repercussions for society in general and for the youngest more susceptible generations, in particular. Based on these assumptions, this article comprehends an analyses of media and news consumption practices within portuguese university students, studying in IADE – Universidade Europeia (in the academic year 2018/2019), located in Lisbon. Through the use of questionnaires and focus groups, we set to find the participants particular uses of social media for news access and consumption. We intend to define these audiences preference profiles, identify practices, analyse their relationship with the media and find patterns in their use of technology to access information.

From their perspective, we intend to understand and analyse the following specific objectives:
i) their habits of access and news consumption in social media;
ii) their interests and preferences regarding the news, in general, and the subjects of the news they like, share or comment, through social media platforms;
iii) their perceptions of news concept;
iv) if they can distinguish between fake news and news by analysing their perception of it and the likehood of them sharing it.

A literature review on the topic of news literacy and fake news is presented as an important challenge for the digital age of Journalism, especially with the proliferation of social media websites. We consider this from the point of view of media literacy, as these are key issues, and involve the creation of strategies - in formal and informal contexts – to aid younger generations into developing skills to critically interpret the news and create a reflexive consciousness of the world that goes beyond the view of the world that is proposed by the media and, particularly, digital platforms.

Keywords:

Fake news, news literacy, young adults, students, social media.