CECC researcher Patrícia Dias is the co-author of the recently published report on "Information Skills for Young People of the Digital Age (CIJED)." (July 2021)
According to Eurointelligence (2019), an online financial news service, Generation Z (those born around the 2000s) mainly form their opinion based on platforms such as Youtube and Instagram, and the longstanding party system, still considerably connected to traditional media, finds it difficult to communicate with these young people. Numerous studies attest to the popularity of so-called online influencers – producers of digital content who share their lives in order to gain a following made up of children and adolescents, which they then monetize (Marshall, Barbour & Moore, 2018; Àndo, 2016; Pereira et al, 2018 ; Aran-Ramspott, 2018 & Marôpo et al, 2018; Jorge et al, 2018). Crystal Abidin (2018), a renowned researcher of online culture, has cautioned that although academics and journalists tend to underestimate online celebrities, the latter promote messaging that has considerable impact, especially among the young.
As such, this project aimed to study, in partnership with the Sebastião da Gama School Group, how young people (secondary school) broadly consume information from social media. The objective was to better understand how young adults build meaning about issues surrounding politics, consumption and lifestyles, taking into account the online content they access.
The final report was co-authored by Lidia Marôpo, Catarina Delgado, Maria do Rosário Rodrigues, João Torres, Patrícia Dias, Eduarda Ferreira and Alexandra Marreiro da Costa in a partnership between the UCP, IPS (Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal), and Agrupamento Escolar Sebastião da Gama.