“TV remains the dominant screen, followed by digital”, reads a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. Print lovers have declined to about 20% from 27% in 2013.
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Twenty years ago, only 12% of USA adults got news online.
TV news still dominates. More U.S adults prefer to watch news (46 percent) than prefer to read it (35 percent) or listen to it (17 percent).
· Mobile news consumption is rising rapidly, while desktop/laptop usage holds steady.
The portion of Americans who get at least some news on a mobile device rose to 72 per cent in 2016 from 54 per cent in 2013, Pew said. And 5% depend exclusively on mobile devices as a news source.
Of more than 4,500 consumers surveyed earlier this year, three-quarters said that they continue to value the watchdog role of the media.
The Washington-based think tank surveyed over 4,600 US adults between January 12 and February 8 who are members of its “American Trends” survey panel, and found 57% of respondents said they regularly consume TV news. Two in 10 Americans trust the information they get from local or national news organizations “a lot” vs. 14% who said the same of the information they get from friends and family, it said. At least three-quarters express some or a lot of trust in the information from each. Only 4 percent of web-using adults have a lot of trust in the information they find on social media, and 34 percent have at least some trust.
The study showed Americans check a variety of news sources, a finding that seemed to be confirmed by recent discussions about trusted news sources on Reddit. But about the same portion (74 percent) say news organizations tend to favor one side including 75 percent of those who say the media prevents leaders from doing things they shouldnt.
Democrats were more likely to trust national news sources than Republicans or independents, the study said.
Readers still trust traditional media sources more than social media.
Nonetheless, there is a near-constant stream of news stories aimed at debunking fake reports that catch traction on social media.
Is this lack of trust in social media a problem for media companies?
Those who seek out the news online behave differently from those who stumble into news while doing other things online.
I asked Mitchell for her summary take and she replied: “The public is discerning”, bringing critical judgment to the news they consume, whatever the platform. Among these “news seekers”, 63 per cent follow news all or most of the time, compared with 43 per cent of non-seekers.
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The findings for young adults are “very stark” when it pertains to “holding a print edition”, said Pew researcher Jeffrey Gottfried, but less dramatic when it comes to getting news from many of those same organisations online.
