OFCOM’s research into UK news consumption habits highlights the changing nature of ‘news’ and how news – as a category - matters for society. While legacy news sources, such as the BBC or print newspapers (or their online variations), continue to maintain a significant role in conveying information, social media platforms such as Tik Tok have emerged as the new dominant source of news as the very definition of ‘news’ becomes rethought.

Personal relevance, opinionated coverage, peer influence, and topics outside of the traditional realm of news coverage are now dominant trends. This, however, does not mean that social media-based news is not ‘appropriate’ news. Instead, news consumed via Tik Tok or Twitter still enact the purpose of news (ie. the conveyance of relevant information for the consumer), but they do so in a disrupted complex environment shaped by political and economic motivations.

Instead of dismissing social media platforms as news sources, we need to rethink how we, firstly, educate young consumers about the complexities of news on such platforms (ie. that information on social media is easily manipulated and amplified by algorithmic concerns) and, secondly, that up-to-date regulation governs what users perceive as news on these platforms.