Nearly half of US adults get news from Facebook
According to a new report released on May 26 by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation, more than 40% of American adults get news through Facebook.
According to niemanlab.org, the report shows that two-thirds of Facebook users access news on this social network, and 67% of American adults who use Facebook, equivalent to 44% of the total US population, consider Facebook as a news source.
Discussions around Facebook's role in news have intensified in recent weeks after Gizmodo reported that Facebook has hired human curators to decide which trending topics will appear most prominently on the desktop version of the site.
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| Illustration photo: industryweek.com |
There’s no denying that Facebook is a major source of news, and research suggests that trend is only growing. A 2013 Pew report found that 47% of Facebook users went to the social networking site for news. Today, that number has risen to 66%.
According to the report, a total of 62% of American adults get news on social media, up from 49% in a similar study in 2012. However, 64% of Americans get news from just one social media channel, with Facebook being the most popular news platform. Only 26% get news from two social networks, and 10% from three or more.
Facebook is the largest social media outlet for news for Americans. Only 10% of American adults get news from YouTube, 9% from Twitter, 4% from Instagram, and 2% from Snapchat and Reddit.
Despite their smaller total audiences, Twitter and Reddit are viewed as news outlets by a large percentage of users. On Reddit, 70% of users watch news, and on Twitter, it's 59%. On Snapchat, it's 17%.
Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn users tend to search for news on these platforms, while Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube users are more likely to see news on these sites. 63% of Instagram users and 62% of Facebook users say they see news while they’re doing other things on social media.
The report also found that each social network attracts a different demographic. Instagram’s news audience is disproportionately non-white, young, and mostly female. Compared to the other four platforms, LinkedIn leads in news audiences with college degrees; Twitter comes in second.
According to Vietnam+
