Web more than popular the newspapers: US survey
- Added:
- Mar 01, 2010
The Web has become the third most popular way Americans receive news, behind local and national TV broadcasts, although the majority turn to several online and offline news sources on any given day, according to the Pew Research Center study.
The survey showed that news aggregators such as Google News and AOL were most commonly used, along with the websites of CNN and the BBC.
Over three in five (61%) of readers surveyed said they got their news online on a typical day, compared with 78% from local news and 71% from a national TV network such as NBC or a cable channels such as CNN or Fox News.
Fifty-four percent said they listened to radio news programmes at home or in the car.
More than 90% use more than one method to get news, and 57% consult between two and five websites as part of their newsgathering, the survey found.
"Americans have become news grazers both on and offline - but within limits," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director for the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.
"They generally don't have one favourite website but also don't search aimlessly. Most online news consumers regularly draw on just a handful of different sites."
Regular readers of newspapers - either local ones or national papers such as the New York Times - have dropped to 50%, the survey said.
Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic have been going through difficult times as advertising slows and more readers.
The study also found that of the 57 percent of Americans who use social-networking sites like Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn, about half receive their news from people they follow. Also, 6 percent of all Internet users get news through Twitter posts.
About one-fifth of social-network users follow news organizations or individual journalists to get news, treating them "as nodes in their social networks," the report said.
The report also found 37 percent have "contributed to the creation of news," meaning they have commented on a news story, posted a link on a social network, created their own news or opinion piece or sent a Twitter message about the news.
"People use their social networks and social-networking technology to filter, assess and react to the news," the report said.
In the past, when media was dominated by newspapers, TV and radio, people could write a letter to the editor or call a news tip line to get involved in the news. But with the Internet, especially in the past five years with the rise of social networks, people have the tools to easily participate in the news stream, Rainie said.
"It's a much more engaged audience," he said. "If you're really into news, this is paradise."
News has become more portable, with more people using laptops and other mobile devices. The study found 33 percent of adults have access to news on a cell phone, and they use it for weather reports, current events or sports scores.
While news has become even more important for people to use as "social currency" in their interactions with others, media companies that have been hard hit by declining audiences and revenue because of the Internet still have to find ways to profit from the trend, Rainie said.
"It's not clear yet in this environment how much of an economic payoff that has," he said. "It would probably be useful to bring your intended audience into those conversations."
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