When it comes to older persons, traditional news media is still the first chosen source of information. The study by Karin Ljuslinder and Anna Sofia Lundgren, both of Umeå Universitet, analyses the narratives of older people about their news media consumption and their reasons for getting news about the surrounding world from the traditional news press.

The article is based on interviews with 15 older persons, 62–84 years of age, including 7 men and 8 women from northern Sweden.

The authors argue that the reason why older people stay true to traditional news might be found in the strong discourse about what constitutes an ideal citizen: Ideal citizen keeps himself or herself updated about the surrounding world via the news media. Habit explains a lot about news consumption as well – and habit tends to grow stronger over time, the authors note.

The article “”I trust what’s written but I don’t think it’s good”: Old age pensioners’ persistency in the practice of obtaining information from the news media” was published by Medie Kultur and it can be found here (open access).

Picture: reading the newspaper by Nicolas Alejandro, licence: CC BY 2.0