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Millennials Usher a Post-Digital Era: Theorizing how Generation Y Engages with Digital Media

2019; Emerald Publishing Limited; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1108/s2050-206020190000019002

2050-2079

Deb Aikat,

Technology Use by Older Adults

Abstract Dubbed as the “first digital generation,” the millennials (or Generation Y) have been ensconced in digital technologies throughout their lives. As a demographic cohort, the eldest members of Generation Y were the first to reach adulthood by 2001, which heralded the third millennium, and were, therefore, called the millennials. Keywords Post-digital era Generation Y media engagement Media consumption by Generation Y or millennials Millennials’ Media consumption Millennials’ Media engagement Digital media engagement Citation Aikat, D. (2019), "Millennials Usher a Post-Digital Era: Theorizing how Generation Y Engages with Digital Media", Schulz, J., Robinson, L., Khilnani, A., Baldwin, J., Pait, H., Williams, A.A., Davis, J. and Ignatow, G. (Ed.) Mediated Millennials (Studies in Media and Communications, Vol. 19), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 9-29. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2050-206020190000019002 Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited Millennials have often led older Americans in their adoption and use of technology, and this largely holds true today … More than nine-in-ten Millennials (92%) own smartphones, compared with 85% of Gen Xers …, 67% of Baby Boomers … and 30% of the Silent Generation …. Similarly, the vast majority of Millennials (85%) say they use social media. Pew Research Center’s January 2018 survey data on technology use of Americans across generations. (Jiang, 2018, para. 1–2). Dubbed as Generation Y, the millennials lead in adopting technology, as enunciated in the epigraph. Born between 1981 and 1996, the millennials (or Generation Y) are called the “first digital generation” because they have been ensconced in digital technologies throughout their lives. As a demographic cohort, Generation Y was the first generation to attain adulthood by 2001, which heralded the third millennium, and was, therefore, called the millennials. In a January 2018 Pew survey, almost all millennials (97%) said they use the Internet, and 28% of them said they accessed the Internet only with smartphones, without traditional broadband service at home (Jiang, 2018, para. 1 & 2). Besides embracing digital life, the millennials constitute human history’s largest generation with 1.8 billion people, about a quarter of the global population (Tilford, 2018). In 2019, the millennials were America’s largest generation, totaling 73 million and surpassing the baby boomers (Fry, 2018). Over the years, media consumption has varied among different age groups. Newspapers and television were popular with the Silent generation (people born 1928–1945). The Internet significantly transformed media use among baby boomers (born 1946–1964) and Generation X (those born 1965–1980). The rise of social media has significantly transformed media consumption of millennials or Generation Y. Compared to other demographic cohorts, millennials have also distinguished themselves as the most educated generation. In this backdrop, the research reported in this study analyzed the influence of the digital media and the associated technologies on enhancing the millennials’ Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC). By scope and definition, ICC connotes an individual’s ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in various cultural contexts. Key ICC components include motivation, self-knowledge, cognition, and tolerance for uncertainty. In her 25-year review of scholarship on ICC, Martin (2015) identified the “ABC” (affect, behaviors, and cognition/knowledge) triumvirate in most ICC models among other significant theoretical contributions. Martin suggested future theoretical research into ICC should focus on frameworks that capture more holistic, relational, and spiritual view of ICC, thereby moving beyond individual-focused, reductionistic models (Martin, 2015, pp. 6–7). Martin called for future ICC studies to acknowledge that power relations are part of every intercultural encounter (Martin, 2015, pp. 6–7). Martin urged researchers to focus on conceptualizations that acknowledge the fluid, dynamic, contested nature of cultures, multiple cultural identities, and intercultural interactions. Such focus would revamp the existing practice of implicit conceptualization of culture with its extant focus on national culture groups presumed to be homogenous. Although far from being homogenous, the millennials, albeit increasingly fragmented, provide many opportunities to study their media use, as the next section outlines. Study Objectives and Research Method Responding to Martin’s clarion call (2015), this study focuses on how technology connects the millennial generation across the geographical spectrum creating more awareness and acceptance of multiculturalism. Pertinent to the “Mediated Millennials” theme of the Emerald Studies in Media and Communications, this study identifies six theoretical constructs that explicate how millennials, as the first digital generation, are ushering an emerging post-digital era that is redefining how we live, work, and play. By situating media consumption within a cross-disciplinary context of media engagement, this study analyzed how millennials consume digital media based on a 2019 meta-analytical research analysis that integrates 22 cross-disciplinary studies, published between 2015 and 2019. The studies were selected for their relevance to millennial’s media consumption, participation, and production. We analyzed each study to derive key theoretical perspectives and conceptual ideas that explicate the social, cultural, and multidisciplinary implications relating to millennials’ engagement with the digital media. Informed by an array of conceptual, analytical and empirical insights, this research study explicates six theoretical perspectives into how millennials engage with the digital media. Millennials engage with the media and influence technological innovations with their media consumption. Media technologies such as AirDrop, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify, to name a few, have transformed millennials’ identity, media use, and digital life. The research reported in this study spawned broader theoretical frameworks with an abundance of theoretical, conceptual and empirical fragments, whose interrelationships and relevance represent the repertoire of communication processes that inform how millennials consume media. In the spirit of theoretical consolidation, this study critically analyzed the relevance and implications of the research findings to revisit and expand epistemological and historical foundations relating to millennials’ media use. This study integrated relevant theories, media models and core concepts that inform media use across different societies in our globalized and digital media ecosystem. Research into millennials often connotes age-specific generational monikers such as the Silent Generation, the baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y or the millennials, and Generation Z or post-millennials among other monikers with seemingly confusing connotations. The next section defines each generational group. Defining the Millennials’ (Generation Y) Demographic Cohort This study identifies age-specific generational segments based on Pew Research Center (2019) categories. People born between 1928 and 1945 are in the Silent generation, baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, and Generation X members were born between 1965 and 1980. Dubbed as millennials, Generation Y designates people born between 1981 and 1996. Post-millennials or Generation Z constitutes people born in 1997 or after. With no chronological endpoint, the Generation Z age ranges vary by analysis and the year of study, according to the Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center, 2019). We interchangeably use the terms Generation Y and millennials in this study because they refer to the same age group of people born between 1981 and 1996. The next section previews the six theoretical constructs explicating the news consumption habits of Generation Y or the millennials. STUDY SIGNIFICANCE: SIX THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTS FOR MILLENNIALS’ MEDIA USE In theorizing how the millennial generation engages with the news media, this study presents six theoretical constructs relating to mediated millennials. We will discuss specific details of each theoretical construct later in this study, but for the sake of convenience, here is a quick preview. First theoretical construct: Millennials usher a post-digital era. Generation Y manifests the advent of a post-digital era. Millennials have actively adopted digital innovations as the first digital generation ensconced in digital technologies throughout their lives. Digital technology is no longer an aspiration but an essential element in our lives. Technology-driven changes are transitioning us from the present digital age toward a new reality of the post-digital world that is redefining how we live, work and play. Second theoretical construct: Millennials consume news through multiple media platforms. In today’s multifaceted media environment, millennials consume news with a somewhat promiscuous preference for platforms ranging from mobile to television. A plethora of emerging news sources enables millennials to switch between news platforms on social and digital media for their news. To that end, leading news organizations offer news on multiple platforms. Third theoretical construct: Millennials depend on social media for news, entertainment, and a sense of connection. Despite their concerns about inaccurate information in social media, millennials live, literally and virtually, in digitally networked spaces because they cherish the interactive experience. Fourth theoretical construct: Millennials cherish digital media and immersive storytelling. Millennials prefer media storytelling with multifaced features such as video, visuals, audio, data-driven content that engages them. Fifth theoretical construct: Millennials are an influential demographic cohort. With increased influence and spending power, millennials are an influential demographic cohort that has hindered or helped innovations in media and journalism. Media consumption trends of millennials have influenced industry-wide changes in news content, entertainment, marketing, political communication, and beyond. Sixth theoretical construct: News-Finds-Me Mindset affects millennials. The news-finds-me mindset occurs when passive news consumers rely and expect active news consumers to share important news and information. Incidental news exposure (INE), the moniker for stumbling upon news, has become the dominant mode of information acquisition for millennials and other population groups. INE spawns “bumpers” who involuntarily bump into news items, as opposed to “seekers” who actively search or seek news content. The millennials’ media consumption, participation, and production signify theoretical insights that focus on digital media use and information engagement. These theoretical constructs signify important issues relating to media use by millennials, as outlined in the ensuing six sections. The next section enunciates key elements of the first theoretical construct. First Theoretical Construct: Millennials Usher a Post-Digital Era This section explicates the first theoretical construct, which posited, “Generation Y manifests the advent of a post-digital era. Millennials have actively adopted digital innovations as the first digital generation ensconced in digital technologies throughout their lives. Digital technology is no longer an aspiration but an essential element in our lives. Technology-driven changes are transitioning us from the present digital age toward a new reality of post-digital world that is redefining how we live, work and play.” In analyzing how millennials consume news media, we would be remiss to ignore important theoretical perspectives relating to emerging post-digital trends that are central to the theoretical framework of this study. The fruition of Gibson’s cyberspace in the twenty-first century : Science fiction visionary William Gibson (1984) famously prophesied cyberspace as “a consensual hallucination” of “[u]nthinkable complexity.” While writing Neuromancer on a manual typewriter, Gibson delineated cyberspace as a computer-generated landscape where characters enter by “jacking in” (Gibson, 1984, p. 127 & 246) or plugging electrodes directly into sockets implanted in the brain. Gibson’s imaginary world of cyberspace has become a reality over three decades since Gibson conceptualized cyberspace. In today’s digitally connected world, cyberspace connotes both theoretical and practical potential for enhancing communication enriched by interaction in our global village. Contemporary communication mirrors the society it serves. Cyberspace has redefined ideas to enhance the future of communication. Gibson (1984) envisioned cyberspace as a data-rich space where all the information is stored in “every computer in the human system” (p. 51) amidst “gleaming spires of a dozen identical towers of data” (p. 248). Gibson’s imaginary world of cyberspace has inspired sustained initiatives for a globally interlinked computing environment fostered by robust connectivity. In a myriad of ways, the twenty-first century digitally networked society manifests Gibson’s imaginary world of cyberspace. New realities of the post-digital era: We are poised to enter a post-digital era where almost everyone is digitally connected. Accenture, a global professional services company, defined the “new reality” of the post-digital era in these words: “The lightning-speed of change, driven by technology, is taking us from the digital age toward a new reality, one we call the post-digital world” (Daugherty, Carrell-Billiard, & Biltz, 2019, p. 2) The Accenture report by Daugherty et al. (2019) stated, “Digital is no longer a differentiating advantage – it’s now the price of admission” (p. 2.) Expedited by technology saturation, the post-digital era connotes an obvious next step of extending the digital prowess. Now that almost everyone is digitally connected, the post-digital era sets a higher bar of rising expectations instead of indicating the end of digital technologies. The post-digital era has also prompted industry leaders to explore its potential. “[A]s digital continues to take hold and the next wave of powerful technologies ushers in a new era … everything is becoming digital …. We see examples of this everywhere – in how people shop, work, learn, communicate, decide, respond and even elect leaders,” according to the Accenture report (Daugherty, Carrell-Billiard, & Biltz, 2019, p. 2). Aikat attributes the rise of the post-digital era to our rapidly evolving “relationships with digital technologies” and the “assumption that we are constantly connected with the digital realm” (Aikat, 2017, pp. 139–140). Aikat posits the post-digital era, as encompassing an extended manifestation of, “Gibson’s imaginary world with the dominance of data-driven media decisions, news algorithms, social media apps, mobile media, and ubiquitous computing among other digital innovations that empower media consumers to act as content creators who significantly influence and interact with digital technologies” (Aikat, 2017, p. 140). Post-digital innovations transform the media ecosystem: Post-digital developments in products, people, platforms and perspectives are transforming the twenty-first century media ecosystem. In the post-digital era, digital technologies and media permeate our life, work, play and community. The post-digital media ecosystem mandates use of digital devices such as the mobile phone to accomplish daily tasks ranging from authenticating with two-factor verification our identity with digital devices, accessing news, information, and entertainment through smart devices, and a range of other functions that require digital connectivity. People without a requisite digital device and connectivity will be devoid of these services. We are, therefore, dependent on the power of the data-driven digital devices, which have made us subservient to automated mobile apps functions ranging from waking up with mobile phone alarms to paying with our smartphones. The impact of these post-digital dimensions extends beyond our personal lives. For instance, the digital media ecosystem has forced legacy media groups and journalists to cede their dominance over knowledge, wisdom, and storytelling. This is akin to the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation when religious, political, intellectual, and cultural upheavals splintered the dominance of the Catholic Church. After the Reformation, people turned into their own priests in attempting to communicate directly with God. In a similar way, the twenty-first century media ecosystem has empowered everyone, in theory and through digital technologies, to practice journalism, thereby eroding the previously uncontested and dominant role of the journalist. In the post-digital era, media consumers have turned into new content creators who deftly mimic journalistic practices and use digital tools to bypass journalists and legacy news media. They create news, information, and entertainment content on platforms as diverse as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube to reach out to their target audiences. Such disintermediation of primary news channels has contributed to compelling news outbreaks based on factual reporting. It has accelerated the pace of news dissemination with powerful storytelling and sharing on diverse media channels. Digital technologies ensconce our lives in the post-digital era. Post-digital developments in media strategies are re-defining the world of news with new trends, themes, tools, and theories. For instance, since 2012, the New York Times newspaper has earned more digital revenues from online subscribers than advertisers (Ember, 2016). This was a significant shift because advertising was New York Times’s traditional revenue source for more than 160 years. Besides the New York Times, several other prominent national and international newspapers now boast more digital subscribers than print. These newspapers include the Financial Times, the Times of London, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the Boston Globe (Benton, 2019). In many ways, these newspapers’ rise in digital revenue indicates post-digital trends in media. Post-digital trends have transformed other media realms. Empowered with digital tools, everyone, from dictators and democrats to demagogues and divas, is a content creator influencing the media agenda. By circumventing the once critical role of journalists as media gatekeepers, the content creators strategically engage their audience with persuasive messages and customized content on multiple platforms. The post-digital media milieu is replete with self-publishers. Look at top brands, sports teams and official entities ranging from state governments to the White House. Using diverse media channels on both traditional and modern platforms, they run their own media channels. Each owns their own media platforms. The best brands lead the narrative with the power of storytelling and persuasive messages. Storytelling has emerged as the root of social, political, and economic influence. In the post-digital era, a powerful story lasts forever archived in diverse spaces ranging from the Internet Archive to YouTube . The deleterious misuse of media in the post-digital era: Not all is well with post-digital media developments. On the negative side, ubiquitous access to digital media tools for publishing has led to individuals disseminating fake news that disrupt the pursuit of truth, or veritas. Such developments have beleaguered journalism. Egregious misuse of social media has fueled sinister situations such as widespread accusations of “fake news.” Post-digital issues have affected entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, who was born in 1984, and, therefore, a millennial. Faced with controversy and criticism, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg published on February 16, 2017, a manifesto for building global community (Zuckerberg, 2017). Over 2017 and 2019, Facebook faced manifold privacy scandals ranging from the fake news crisis to Cambridge Analytica’s wholesale data harvesting in wanton violation of consumer privacy. On January 24, 2019, Zuckerberg commemorated Facebook’s 15th anniversary by authoring a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “The Facts About Facebook” to say, “We need your information for operation and security, but you control whether we use it for advertising” (Zuckerberg, 2019). He also ruminated “I built a service people could use to connect and learn about each other. Over the years, billions have found this useful, and we’ve built more services that people around the world love and use every day” (Zuckerberg, 2019). Zuckerberg’s trials and tribulations give credence to the challenges that accompany the rich-get-richer syndrome of the post-digital era. Even as Zuckerberg reels under Facebook’s privacy concerns, his unabated net worth of $62.4 billion makes him among the richest millennials. The rich-get-richer syndrome of the post-digital era contributes to the widening digital divide. Nearly 10% of US adults do not use the Internet even as most US residents consider the Internet as an essential element of a meaningful life, according to a Pew Research Center survey in January–February 2019 (Anderson, Perrin, Jiang, & Kumar, 2019). On the international level, less than half (about 48.2%) of the world’s population do not have adequate Internet access. That digitally deprived segment lives in pre-digital darkness and devoid of opportunities in the post-digital era. There is a significant digital divide in Internet penetration rates between the developed and developing nations (ITU, 2016). Compared to 81% Internet penetration in developed countries, the developing countries lag with 45.3%, according to International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ITU, 2018). Post-digital era ushers the fourth industrial revolution: Notwithstanding these post-digital era inequities, we are in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with a range of new technologies merging the physical, digital, and biological worlds (Schwab, 2016). German engineer-economist Klaus Schwab, who founded in 1971 the World Economic Forum and spurred Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), has predicted that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will fundamentally alter how we live and work in developments affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, with challenging ideas about what it means to be human (Schwab, 2016). Post-digital technologies will fuel the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Informed by perspectives on technological evolution, Schwab credits the Fourth Industrial Revolution with “ramifications more profound” and “more significant” than in any “prior period of human history” and with the evolution of succeeding innovations (Schwab, 2016). While the First Industrial Revolution mechanized production with water and steam power, the Second Industrial Revolution created mass production with electric power. The Third Industrial Revolution automated production with electronics and information technology (Schwab, 2018, para 2). Schwab placed the Third Industrial Revolution toward the middle of the twentieth century when the digital revolution began. Schwab predicted that the effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will catalyze the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s fusion of technologies that blurs physical, digital, and biological spheres (Schwab, 2018, para 2). Relevant to the post-digital era, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will also spawn complex challenges. In his 2016 book, Schwab envisioned the Fourth Industrial Revolution as an opportunity to implement innovative ideas to harness change and shape a better future with technology empowering people instead of replacing them, progress serving society but rarely disrupting it; and innovators respecting moral and ethical boundaries instead of flouting them. Envisioning the fourth industrial revolution as “different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before,” Schwab called for developing new frameworks that advance progress (Schwab, 2016). Mired in the humdrum of a technology surfeit, the sustaining dictum of the post-digital era is to inform and influence your audience with the power of a great story. The post-digital world emphasizes human factors such as high-touch (or human impact) instead of high-tech in a society satiated with digital technologies. Digital access is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. We, therefore, should take time to be away from technology because it is less stressful and a relief from the over-consuming world of constant digital interaction. Ignoring such over-consuming pressures of technology, millennials are permanently connected to digital technologies and seem addicted to their digital devices. The next section enunciates key elements of the second theoretical construct. SECOND THEORETICAL CONSTRUCT:MILLENNIALS PREFER MANY PLATFORMS This section explicates the second theoretical construct, which pointed out “Millennials consume news through multiple media platforms. In today’s multifaceted media environment, millennials consume news with a somewhat promiscuous preference for platforms ranging from mobile to television. A plethora of emerging news sources enable millennials to switch between news platforms on social and digital media for their news. To that end, leading news organizations offer news on multiple platforms.” Unlike older generations who were loyal to one or two news sources, millennials get their news through multiple media platforms such as news websites, television, radio, mobile media, and social media channels. Diehl, Barnidge, and Gil de Zúñiga (2018) developed a multiplatform news use index (MPI), to measure the amount of news consumed and the different types of media. They analyzed a nationally representative survey from the United States to conclude that multiplatform news was also positively related to alternative modes of political engagement (Diehl et al., 2018). Using their MPI scale, Diehl et al. measured the amount of news consumed and the different types of media to identify overlaps. They concluded that “Low MPI reflects reliance on one or two communication modalities (low diversity), and high MPI reflects reliance on several media and technological modalities (high diversity)” (Diehl et al., 2018, p. 3). High diversity of news led to better political engagement (Diehl et al., 2018). When people interacted more on news platforms, they seemed more politically engaged (p. 7). Multiplatform news positively related to alternative modes of political engagement. The differences among generations in media consumption affect political participation. “The shift toward multi-platform news use occurs in tandem with changes in the way people engage in democratic society” (Diehl et al., 2018, p. 16). Diehl et al. (2018) inferred that when people increased their use of different media platforms to consume news, they absorb more information leading to increased political participation (p. 7). Our media consumption “will determine the nature of democratic society in the coming decades” because our media consumption fosters more political movements in our society, Diehl et al. (2018, p. 18) concluded. The next section explicates key elements of the third theoretical construct. THIRD THEORETICAL CONSTRUCT: MILLENNIALS DEPEND ON SOCIAL MEDIA This section explicates the third theoretical construct, which stated “Millennials depend on social media for news, entertainment, and a sense of connection. Despite their concerns about inaccurate information in social media, millennials live, literally and virtually, in digitally networked spaces because they cherish the interactive experience.” Compared to other demographic groups, millennials have stronger affinity for online convenience and place greater reliance upon online information than Generation X. Millennials cherish the convenience of social media. Millennials enjoy how readily accessible news is on the social media platforms they also use for social interaction, about 21% of people said that convenience was their favorite thing about social media as a source of news. Younger generations regularly access social media sites to engage and interact with people anyway, so getting informed about current news makes it easy. Social media makes millennials more informed (Schomer, 2018). When evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision, people rely on availability heuristic, defined as a mental shortcut that relies on immediate and compelling examples in a person’s mind. The concept of availability heuristic explicates why people seek and absorb information available to them. With dependable access to information, social media nurtures availability heuristic by offering news and information just a screen swipe or click away (Shearer & Matsa, 2018). Availability heuristic explains why people are inclined to engage and absorb information that is readily available to them because it is readily available at our fingertips and involves least effort to seek it. Social media allow people to access news content that they would have otherwise missed if they did not see it on social media. Millennials are able to learn about, and engage with, information that they would not have sought out had the information not be presented to them (Shearer & Matsa, 2018; Matsa & Shearer, 2018). Millennials consider convenience as important when acces