Makes me wonder how much is causation vs correlation. Other studies show a clear age divide on the Israel-Palestine conflict, with elderly people more likely to support Israel and younger people more likely to support Palestine.

Each group happens to get their news through different media, with boomers more likely to watch cable TV and younger generations more familiar with getting news from the internet.

I don’t think that necessarily speaks to the quality or accuracy of news across each medium, because you’ll still find bullshit all over the place. Despite the large volume of Israeli apologia/misinformation on the internet, young people are still sympathetic to Palestine because they know not to take claims at face value. And boomers in denial can be presented with factual, provable truths on TV yet still wave them off as liberal conspiracies.

Younger viewers attend to social media, which amplifies outrage and doesn’t have the benefit of an editor or trained journalist staff doing fact checking; only fringe TV outlets run with the loaded/emotional slant that is seen in typical short-form social media content.

Additionally, social media is chock full of (and, in TikTok’s case, controlled by) propaganda actors - usually operating on behalf of regimes such as the CCP and Russian government, who field well-known efforts to tarnish the reputation of the US and its allies.

For example, here on Lemmy, posters like Linkerbaan submit sometimes 20 or more anti-US and anti-Israel articles a week from anywhere they can find them - often comprising their sole activity on the network. There is little balance there.

Another thing - cable TV news viewership is dominated by Fox News, with almost double the ratings of MSNBC and triple the ratings of CNN. Any analysis that lumps all cable viewers together will be describing mostly Fox News viewers.