New Country, New(s) Habits: How does migration affect news consumption and avoidance behavior? : A case study on young millennial immigrants living in Stockholm, Sweden

Sammanfattning: This audience study explores the changes of news consumption and avoidance behaviour by young millennial immigrants from various backgrounds, living in Stockholm, Sweden. Considering various theoretical frameworks, such as the intentional vs. unintentional model (Skovsgaard & Andersen, 2020), the migration change model (Tabor & Milfont, 2011), as well as a combination of a phenomenology of news model (Bengtsson & Johansson, 2021) and media repertoires established by Swart et al. (2017), a qualitative research has been conducted consisting of eight semi-structured interviews. Through a thematic analysis possible patterns have been established and findings show that individuals tend to change their behaviour in news consumption for various reasons. (1) Participants want to be able to establish their own news-routines and use their migration as an opportunity for a new start, (2) there is a certain influence by people closest to them and with their social circle changing, their (news) interests change as well, and (3) motivation and interest play an important role in shaping new consumption behaviours in a new country: the more one is interested in learning more about the new country, its culture and its language, the more likely they are to check that country’s traditional news media sources.