A new US report on news consumption across social media finds that news consumers primarily rely on one preferred platform to source news. The study by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation is based on a sample of 4,500 adults. Among these, 64% source news from one platform like Facebook, Twitter or Reddit, 26% use two platforms as a source, and just 10% use three or more platforms to source news.
The use of social media for news has grown across all major platforms with 66% of Facebook users obtaining news from the site and 70% of Reddit users obtaining news from Reddit. (Reddit is one of the top ten most visited sites in the US)
The manner of finding news differs for each platform. On YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, news users are most likely to find news by chance when they are doing other things online. Alternatively, Reddit, Twitter and LinkedIn news users are almost evenly divided between those who use the sites to seek out news and those who find news by chance on these sites.
The Reuters Digital News Report will be published next June revealing digital news consumption trends across sixteen countries. FuJo is conducting the research analysis for Ireland.
Subscribe to FuJo's monthly newsletter.
