This fall, we invited a group of ambitious young individuals to participate in a co-creation process exploring the future of trust in media. Through a series of workshops, the participants identified signals, developed speculative future scenarios, and created conceptual prototypes of news experiences addressing key challenges around credibility and relevance. Learn more in the summary below!
BACKGROUND
In 2024, Schibsted Media conducted a major interview study to better understand the drivers of user trust in media. The research identified key factors influencing trust, three of which became the focus of this project:
Credibility of process – How trustworthy the journalistic process and the people behind it are perceived to be.
Credibility of content – How reliable and accurate the content itself is seen by users.
Personal relevance – How relevant and meaningful users find the content to be in their daily lives.
To explore these factors, we invited a group of young changemakers to collaborate with us through a process rooted in speculative design and co-creation. By identifying signals they believed could impact trust in the media and building future scenarios, the participants explored how trust in media might evolve over time and developed concept ideas to address the challenges identified in these scenarios.
To keep in mind: the developed scenarios should not be seen as predictions of what will happen, nor are the concept ideas necessarily envisioning desirable futures for news media. Instead, the project outputs are intended to spark ideas, raise fundamental questions, challenge assumptions, and encourage critical thinking about the future of media.
WHAT WE DID
Over the course of three weeks, Trust Sprint brought together 8 driven young individuals, aged 18-23, most from the universities Stockholm School of Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Södertörn. The program consisted of five sessions and the participants worked in teams to explore the future of trust in media, following a structured process:
Introduction to program & topic
The program kicked off with an overview of its goals and structure, followed by a presentation of Schibsted Media’s Trust study, which highlighted the key factors driving user trust in media. Participants were introduced to the concept of signals and scenarios as tools for exploring potential futures.
Exploring signals on media trust
Participants began by working individually to identify signals and later collaborated in teams to explore how these signals could evolve or scale to impact trust and relevance in media over time.
Writing future scenarios
Working in teams, participants crafted speculative future scenarios, envisioning a future world where the identified signals scaled up and went mainstream.
Prototyping news experiences
Using their scenarios as a foundation, teams developed speculative concepts for future news solutions designed to address the challenges highlighted in their scenarios.
Sharing
In the final session, participants came together to present their future scenarios and conceptual prototypes.
Through this process, the participants produced three speculative future scenarios and three conceptual prototypes. The team at IN/LAB also refined and clarified these concepts to ensure they effectively highlight opportunities, challenges, and critical questions for the future of media.
THE SCENARIOS
Scenario 1. In this scenario the overwhelming negativity of traditional news media drives young people to disconnect from screens entirely. Read the full scenario here.
Scenario 2. In this scenario, young people rely on news influencers as their primary source of news. Read the full scenario here.
Scenario 3. In this scenario, young people rely on AI services for personalized information, abandoning traditional media and search engines. Read the full scenario here.
THE PROTOTYPES
Daily Dose What if a newsroom extreme-curated what stories users are expected to interact with? The Daily Dose is a product idea designed to engage users with a single, carefully selected news item each day. Here's how it works:
Curated delivery: Editors choose one news story daily, which is delivered to users through a lock-screen notification. The chosen story may not always be the top headline, but it is carefully selected to deliver meaningful relevance and spark user engagement.
Interactive engagement: After consuming the news, users are invited to engage with the content through interactive features. These include quizzes, social sharing, and reactions in formats such as text, audio or video comments.
Reward mechanism: Following their interaction, users receive a reward they can allocate based on their preferences. Options include donating to charity, supporting the news service financially, or redeeming it as CashPoints, creating a positive consequence for their engagement.
News Mixer What if editorial and social content were blended into a single product experience? The News Mixer product idea blends editorial content with social media videos, offering users a dynamic and customizable news experience. Here’s how it works:
Dual feeds: Users can seamlessly navigate between an editorial feed curated by news professionals and a social feed sourcing news-related videos from various social media platforms.
Encouraging editorial exploration: After consuming social content, users are nudged to explore related editorial content, bridging the gap between casual and in-depth news consumption. The editorial feed serves as the default, requiring active effort to switch to the social feed.
Personalized social feed: Users have the freedom to self-curate their social feed, adjusting its tone and style—e.g., humoristic vs. serious, local vs. international—while the editorial feed remains strictly curated by news professionals.
FactBuoy What if a news service helped keep you afloat in the big sea of information? FactBuoy is a digital AI-powered assistant designed to enhance users' ability to navigate and verify information across the internet. Here’s how it works:
Trusted AI companion: An editorial AI assistant trained on reliable editorial news sources, FactBuoy accompanies users across the internet. Acting as a digital companion, it provides real-time support to help users evaluate information and navigate the overwhelming online information landscape.
On-demand fact-checking: Users can verify the authenticity of information directly on the pages or apps they visit. From news articles to social media posts, the AI delivers quick and accurate assessments, ensuring trustworthy consumption.
Content adaptation: Content can be tailored to users' needs with options like simplified language for easier understanding, translations into different languages, and alternative formats such as audio, video, or music for greater accessibility.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
The project and its outcomes were shared with Schibsted Media’s news brands to encourage critical thinking and spark new ideas about the future of media. See below for examples of the questions we discussed:
Do you have questions about this work? Please contact Belenn Bekele at belenn.bekele@schibsted.com
TEAM
Agnes Stenbom, Head of IN/LAB
Belenn Bekele, Program Manager, IN/LAB
Molly Grönlund Müller, Community Researcher, IN/LAB
Esam Touma, Community & Content Specialist, IN/LAB
Molly Zacharison, Trust Sprint participant
Malva Froster Delbom, Trust Sprint participant
Alazar Beyene, Trust Sprint participant
Hannes Hopstadius, Trust Sprint participant
Leo Sun, Trust Sprint participant
Isabella Bergström, Trust Sprint participant
Sasithorn Bystedt, Trust Sprint participant
Ellinor Thulin, Trust Sprint participant