Young Adults’ Folk Theories in a Fragmented Journalistic Environment. The Case of Italy

To grasp journalism’s social relevance and democratic value, it is necessary to understand how people conceive it and how they use it. This effort is more important in countries where there are no shared normative standards of journalism established at a national level. Drawing from the concept of “folk theories”, this research explores how Italian young adults—a strategic population to grasp trends in journalism—make sense of journalism and—more generally—the information they receive. The research consists of two different steps. First, interviews were conducted with a sample of 40 Italian young adults in order to investigate the various existing folk theories. Then, a survey was administered to a representative sample of 800 Italian young adults in order to investigate the diffusion of the folk theories and the factors associated with their adoption. Qualitative results highlight that young adults’ folk theories are articulated on six issues: “what journalism is”, “what journalistic reality is”, “how journalism works”, “journalistic norms”, “how journalism interacts with the audiences”, and “what journalism is for”. Those folk theories distinguish journalism and journalists. Quantitative results show a clear distinction between factors associated with young adults’ folk theories of journalists and journalism.