In an age of concerns about misinformation, audience fragmentation, and polarization, it has become more urgent than ever to understand how news and media impact the way people perceive the world. While the proliferation of media devices, platforms, and information sources has made it challenging to capture people’s news and information use, paradoxically, the digitalization and platformization of society have simultaneously enabled unprecedented access into people’s practices and experiences. This project harnesses these developments via state-of-the-arts methods in communication science and media/journalism studies. Specifically, it combines data donations with WhatsApp-diaries and in-depth interviews to answer the following question: How and under which circumstances do societal issues ‘break through’ the continuous stream of information and resonate with citizens?

To answer this question, first, participants (N=30) will fill in a longitudinal (three-month) diary, weekly reflecting on the societal issues they notice. They will also submit contextual information: Where did they encounter this issue? Did they discuss it with anyone? What do they think about it? Afterward, these participants will donate their digital trace data – spanning the same period of three months – from platforms such as Google, YouTube, Instagram and X. For this, we will use Digital Data Donation Infrastructure (D3I), developed by a consortium led by Theo Araujo (UvA), which enables individuals to download their data from any organization that tracks them and to donate these data to academic research. Comparing the digital trace data and the diary entries will allow us to better understand if, when and how issues people encounter online actually enter their lifeworld (i.e. the world as they subjectively experience it). Creative semi-structured interviews (including data walkthroughs) at the end will help us further make sense of participants’ practices and experiences. Mixed-methods empirical inquiry into everyday meaning-making is crucial for better understanding how media function in today’s society.

Researchers: