The guidance gap: Why young men trust news on social media
Partner content
Seven in 10 young men trust social content as a reliable source of news. How can media serve them better?
A stark statistic emerged from our recent study on the changing face of masculinity last week.
71% of young men trust social media as a reliable source of news, compared to just half of young women. This is despite both genders having real concerns about misinformation in the content they consume.
Young women are more than twice as likely as their male peers to want to spend less time on social media.
So, why the disparity? We would argue that it boils down to their fundamental needs, and the way these are (and aren’t) being met on and offline.
It’s a tricky time to be young. Economic and social precarity, underfunded youth services and rigid masculine and feminine norms are putting pressure on young men and leading to a growing sense of alienation.
Much has been written about a potential crisis of masculinity and the role of the media in this, but our research suggests that individual attitudes stem from a broader ecosystem.
The much-talked-about spread of misogynistic content online reflects broader societal shifts in gender, identity, and power. There is a new divide in social attitudes: whether gender equality has gone too far.
What we see time and time again in our studies is that young men are searching for something difficult for them to find: trust and guidance in an uncertain world.
When asked how media companies can connect with them, their top answers are being a trusted source and giving them information to help them make better decisions in their lives.
Young men (and women) have far more complex needs than they are often given credit for. Yes, funny memes go viral, but they are also searching for something deeper – meatier, substantial content that they can sink their teeth into.
In an age where platforms reward content that is visible, immediate, and laced with confidence, young men’s needs are better met. Trust and guidance have always been as much about tone as content, and there is a real lure in certainty, no matter the truth. Authority has shifted from process to performance: certainty circulates faster than care, and assertion is too easily mistaken for truth.
The need for certainty in an uncertain world
In this context, young women benefit from a cautious approach to trusting what they see online, but they are also being left behind. We are seeing them become more trusting of traditional media and occupying divergent online spaces. There is a danger here of a credibility crisis in a media system perceived to privilege masculine-coded modes of communication.
The challenge then is how to both serve young men and women’s fundamental need for certainty in an uncertain world and also create more balanced spaces that deliver nuance.
Understanding the drivers of credibility and how to move the needle on trust is a complex, messy process. However, the media, both legacy and new, have a role to play here—and we would argue that, in a world where our industry faces declining trust, audience disaffection, content fatigue, and misinformation, it is essential.
Legacy media has always thrived on nuanced, thought-out content. But young people are not in the spaces where they will find the long-form articles of old. Serious, subtle, balanced news needs to adapt and find better ways to connect across social media and challenge clickbait.
There is potential for strategic leverage if this is done well – and brands can position themselves as safer havens in a chaotic attention economy.
There are also incremental gains to be made. A challenge of this size and magnitude doesn’t have to mean existential disruption to digital media spaces. There can be “modest shifts”, such as better on-platform curation, slower amplification, and more context in content.
We would argue, though, that it is only by talking to young men and women, and listening to their experiences and the challenges they face, that we can drill down into strategic levers that can make a difference – and better serve them as a society, an industry and as individual brands.
Jack Maloney is associate director at Ipsos in the UK