Misinformation, noninformation, or information overload? Logics of news exposure in the student population

It seems that social media sites are now the primary source of news for young adults. This new reality has, however, raised a number of concerns, widely aired and debated in the political and media spheres. It is assumed that young people are exposed to unverified or manipulated information or “fake” news, or that they are trapped in “filter bubbles” that isolate them from any opinions that conflict with their own. This article seeks to move away from these assumptions by analyzing these new practices in terms of questions arising from media sociology, using a multi-method field survey (questionnaire, online observation, and interviews) conducted among groups of young people from different social and cultural backgrounds. The findings show that young people from working-class backgrounds are at greater risk of noninformation than misinformation, and that students from elite institutions are exposed to a broader spectrum of content on social media than elsewhere.