ABSTRACT
The nationwide #FeesMustFall (FMF) university student protests that rocked various institutions of political power in SA in 2015/16, (re)created a public image of South African (SA) youth that was politically active and radical. The study of the relationship between youth and spaces of political communication also reveals that youth are staying away not just from traditional news sources and the internet, but from specific types of news as well. The discourse on youth and political communication presupposes the natural primacy of political news itself. In its various manifestations or ideological orientations, the discourse study regards political news as central to human progress, as a conduit to and part of knowledge itself. Young people themselves hold conventional news producers responsible for youth's declining interests in news. They blame them for not offering any material that adolescents and young adults would be interested in.
