How News Publishers Are Capturing the Attention of Gen Z on Social Platforms

By Catherine Wolf  •  January 11, 2024  •  5 min read  •

Ivy Liu

This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →

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In this week’s Digiday+ Research Briefing, we examine how Gen Z consumes the news, how publishers are less likely to depend on subscriptions revenue this year, and how AI and influencer marketing are hot topics at CES 2024, as seen in recent data from Digiday+ Research.

In an effort to tap into the fast-growing Gen Z audience, news organizations are increasingly meeting this generation where they consume news — on social platforms. Members of Gen Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — have spent their entire lives with access to a digital world and they nearly exclusively discover breaking news on their smartphones, while scrolling through social apps like Instagram or X. According to a Reuters study, 39% of social natives ages 18 to 24 use social media as their main source of news, versus 34% who prefer to go directly to a news website or app.

This trend is even more pronounced among younger Gen Z teens under age 18, with just over half of this group (51%) saying they get news daily from social media feeds or messaging services and 40% saying they get news daily from search engines, according to Deloitte Insights. Although fewer Gen Z adults (ages 18 to 24) use social media or messaging services to get their daily news — a third of the group (33%) said this — and even slightly less (32%) said they use search engines, these were still their most used channels for news consumption.

Gen Z’s news consumption habits have changed how news stories spread, with the Gen Z audience sharing and reposting stories across social networks. As a result, news organizations are adapting, often with unique content formatted for each individual platform.

Insights and stats:

• “Brands are going to have to figure out how to produce content that looks and feels more like creator content, which means it’s probably going to be less produced, less edited, and perhaps less editorialized.” — Christina Capatides, vp of social media and trending content for CBS News
• TikTok, in particular, has been capturing Gen Z’s attention as a news source. Nearly a third of U.S. adults under 30 (32%) regularly get news from TikTok, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
• “In order for us to be programming to the Gen Z audience, we need to find them where they are. And it’s the platforms that they are used to — and trust — which is social media.” — Lulu Chiang,

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