Since 2003, the European Media Management Association (emma) has brought together scholars and practitioners interested in how media organisations are managed. Our newest initiative, #emmahub, offers a unique space for exchange between research and practice on current challenges in media industries. In 2023 (at the University of Warsaw), we studied the media’s managerial response to the war in Ukraine; in 2024, we moved to Macromedia University in Berlin to investigate media created by and for migrants; and in 2025, we visited Bilgi University in Istanbul to map media management among content creators. This year’s #emmahub, hosted by the University of Zagreb, continues and deepens the discussion of the latter topic by focusing on youth.

The idea behind the emmamahub 2026 in Zagreb entitled “Youth and Media: Content Creators and Information Authorities” is to discuss how young people (ages 16-30) consume media in general as well as how they create content on social media, “the main gateway to information for young people” (Vázquez-Herrero et al., 2022). A large body of research shows that young people tend to rely heavily on social media for news consumption (e.g., Newman et al., 2025; Batlle et al., 2024; Perišin et al., 2021). According to the latest Reuters Digital News Report, 54% of those aged 18-24 and 50% of those aged 25-34 use social media as their main source of news (Newnam et al., 2025). Various research also demonstrates that young people show “weaker connection with news brands’ own websites” (Newman et al., 2023: 10), “receive most news items incidentally” (Batlle et al., 2024), and “often pay more attention to influencers or celebrities than they do to journalists” (Newman et al., 2023: 10) which leads to influencers now playing “a significant role in shaping public debate” (Newnam et al., 2025). One recent research has identified “certain factors like male gender, being politically engaged and ascribing opinion leader functions” to social media influencers that “make youth more likely to use them as a main source of political information” (Harff and Schmuck, 2025: 855). Peers have also been identified as “providers of (links to) news” (Russmann and Hess, 2020: 3184). Still, a lot of young people tend to avoid the news. As Pew Research Center’ study shows, only “15% of young adults say they follow the news all or most of the time” (Forman-Katz et al., 2025). There are many reasons for news avoidance – a survey conducted in Croatia identified two main reasons for news avoidance among young people: because the topics covered by traditional media generally do not include young people, and because they find the way these topics are presented boring (Blažević et al., 2022). Another identified problem is a general distrust in media, including social media, regardless of it being their main source of information (Blažević et al., 2022).

In view of such findings, it is important to discuss ways in which young people can be encouraged to vocalize their needs and desires regarding media content as well as to discuss the ways in which they can be assume the role of media managers; i.e. be encouraged to create and distribute their own media content. This touchpoint runs in three interconnected dimensions when young generations become 1) media employees (not only as journalists), 2) part of media audience and 3) content creators. The presented approach allows us to study the “youth and media topic” through the perspective of human resources (how to recruit, hire, and manage young employees), marketing (how media adapt their business models - including their products, brands, distribution, payments, etc. - to reach younger audiences) and influencers phenomena (who can be treated as modern media managers, as they organise production, build brands and communities, select platforms, analyse audiences, negotiate commercial partnerships, manage revenue streams, and make editorial and ethical decisions). Such a diverse take on youth in media management leads us also to a broader and more universal take on generation-induced transformations resulting in new patterns of trust, attention, participation, and engagement.