Is digital native journalism winning the hearts of young people? A Portuguese case study

Constructing and controlling a narrative is part of young people's need to create meaningful frameworks for interaction today, where we live in a complex scenario characterized by the plurality of media spheres and the number of digital opportunities for participation (Maneta et al., 2024). Given this, traditional media outlets are increasingly distant from young people (Madden et al., 2017), in contrast to digital natives who have a significant emotional dimension, which drives more intimate relationships with technology, but also fuels engagement with news by inspiring connection (Beckett & Deuze, 2016), what Clark and Marchi (2017) describe as connective journalism. With the aim of identifying which editorial approaches are more effective and generate greater empathy and interest in the news among young people, this study conducted 15 interviews with young people aged between 16 and 18. When confronted with two reports on mental health, one from the digital native Fumaça and the other from the newspaper Público, they said they were more interested in the first one, which through its audio format and first-person storytelling offered them a closer approach and made them feel greater empathy, understanding and interest.