Report Launch - News and Young Australians in 2026: how children and teens access, perceive and understand news media

If the sales for this event have stopped and you wish to attend, please email nmrc@canberra.edu.au for the online link.

Please join us to discuss the report key findings for the News and Young Australians in 2026: how children and teens access, perceive and understand news media report— a collaboration between researchers from Western Sydney University, Queensland University of Technology and University of Canberra. This is the fourth survey in this series.

WHAT: Report Launch - News and Young Australians in 2026: how children and teens access, perceive and understand news media

WHEN: Wednesday 2 September 2026

TIME: 11am - 12pm (AEST)

WHERE: Online (link will be sent morning of the event)

OTHER INFORMATION: Panel discussion will be moderated by Annabelle Astbury from ABC Education.

Summary

The report emerges from a longitudinal survey project that has tracked the news engagement of young people aged 10-17 years since 2017– examining their news practices, attitudes, knowledge and experiences.

Since 2017, this project has found that as young people move into their teenage years their news engagement becomes more digital and more independent. This raises questions about whether and how they have been prepared for this change. To address this, the team developed new questions to explore how news and news literacy education is integrated into the classroom. In addition, to identify learning gaps and needs, new questions were developed to understand young people’s knowledge of digital news media environments.

The authors find that this year’s survey results have been significantly influenced by the social media ban. Most young people impacted by the ban report they now get less news. This is an important finding that is also linked to a decrease in young people’s civic engagement.

Report Authors and Presenters

Tanya Notley

Tanya Notley is Professor in the School of Arts and a member of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University where she leads the Advancing Media Literacy in Australia research program. Tanya is a founding member of Australian Media Literacy Alliance and served as Co-Chair 2020–23.

Simon Chambers

Simon Chambers is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the MARCS Institute at Western Sydney University (WSU). He has previously held roles at organisations such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Music Centre, and is currently Director of Data Science and Social Intelligence at research consultancy The Insight Centre.

Sora Park

Sora Park is a Professor of Communication, and Director of the News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra. She is the project leader of the Digital News Report: Australia. Sora is a member of the Australian Media Literacy Alliance.

Michael Dezuanni

Michael Dezuanni is Professor in the School of Communication at Queensland University of Technology. He is program leader for the Creating Better Digital Futures program in QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre, is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and Chair of the Australian Media Literacy Alliance.

Jee Young Lee

Jee Young Lee is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts & Design, University of Canberra. She is currently leading the Australian Research Council Discovery project ‘News and Australian Teens: Enablers and Barriers to Digital Citizenship’ and a co-author of the Digital News Report: Australia.