Digital news: mixed media and mixed messages

The 2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report explores digital news consumption in 36 countries.  The Report considers trust in the era of fake news and changing business models

Interesting findings

• Trust in news media varies greatly across countries.  Overall, only 43% of the population trusts the news media.  Trust is highest in Finland (62%) and lowest in Greece and South Korea (23%)
• Only a quarter (24%) think social media is doing a good job separating fact from fiction
• Mobile news notifications have grown significantly in the last year
• There has been a significant growth in mobile news aggregators, notably Apple News, but also Snapchat Discover for younger audiences.
• Voice-activated digital assistants like Amazon Echo are emerging as a new platform for news, already outstripping smart watches in the US and UK
• In the US, the researchers identify a Trump Bump – an increase in people paying for subscription news and donating to news organisations
• On average 13% of news subscribers pay for online news
• Austrians and Swiss love printed newspapers; Germans and Italians love TV bulletins, while Latin Americans get more news via social media and chat apps than other parts of the world
• News brands are struggling on distributed platforms – many readers can’t remember the news brand they are reading when they access the news via search or social

The report includes valuable overviews of the findings for all participating countries and is well worth reviewing.

The full pdf can be downloaded here.