mmm Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 Nic Newman with Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, David A. L. Levy and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

mmm  Reuters Institute

Digital News Report 2017



Nic Newman with Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos,
David A. L. Levy and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen 

This year’s report comes amid intense soul-searching in the news industry about fake news,
failing business models, and the power of platforms. And yet our research casts new and
surprising light on some of the prevailing narratives around these issues.

• 
  The internet and social media may have exacerbated low
  trust and ‘fake news’, but we nd that in many countries the
  underlying drivers of mistrust are as much to do with
  deep-rooted political polarisation and perceived mainstream
  media bias.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Echochambersand lterbubblesareundoubtedlyrealfor
  some, but we also nd that – on average – users of social
  media, aggregators, and search engines experience more
  diversity than non-users.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Thoughtheeconomicoutlookformostmediacompanies
  remains extremely di cult, not all the indicators are getting
  worse. The growth of ad-blocking has stopped while online
  subscriptions and donations are picking up in some
  countries. Our focus groups provide some encouragement
  that more might be prepared to pay in the future if content
  is su ciently valuable, convenient, and relevant.
  
  
  
  With data covering more than 30 countries and ve continents,
  this research is a reminder that the digital revolution is full of
  contradictions and exceptions. Countries started in di erent
  places, and are not moving at the same pace. These di erences are
  captured in individual country pages that can be found towards the
  end of this report. They contain critical industry context written
  
  
  
  by experts as well as key charts and data points. The overall story
  around the key trends is captured in this executive summary with
  additional analysis on some subject areas in a separate section.
  
  
  
  SOME OF THE KEY FINDINGS FROM OUR
  2017 RESEARCH:
  
  
  
  

• 
  Growthinsocialmediafornewsis atteningoutinsome
  markets, as messaging apps that are (a) more private and (b)
  tend not to lter content algorithmically are becoming more
  popular. The use of WhatsApp for news is starting to rival
  Facebook in a number of markets including Malaysia (51%),
  Brazil (46%), and Spain (32%).
  
  
  
  
• 
  Onlyaquarter(24%)ofourrespondentsthinksocialmediado
  a good job in separating fact from ction, compared to 40% for
  the news media. Our qualitative data suggest that users feel
  the combination of a lack of rules and viral algorithms are
  encouraging low quality and ‘fake news’ to spread quickly.
  
  
  
  
• 
  There are wide variations in trust across our 36 countries.
  The proportion that says they trust the news is highest in
  Finland (62%), but lowest in Greece and South Korea (23%).
  
  
  
  
• 
  Inmostcountries,we ndastrongconnectionbetweendistrust
  in the media and perceived political bias. This is particularly
  true in countries with high levels of political polarisation like
  the United States, Italy, and Hungary.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Almostathirdofoursample(29%)saytheyo enorsometimes
  avoid the news. For many, this is because it can have a negative
  e ect on mood. For others, it is because they can’t rely on news
  to be true.
  
  
  
  

• Mobile marches on, outstripping computer access for news in
an increasing number of countries. Mobile news noti cations
have grown signi cantly in the last year, especially in the US
(+8 percentage points), South Korea (+7), and Australia (+4),
becoming an important new route to content and giving



a new lease of life to news apps.



• In a related development there has been a signi cant growth
in mobile news aggregators, notably Apple News, but also
Snapchat Discover for younger audiences. Both have doubled
usage with their target groups in the last year.



• Smartphones are now as important for news inside the home
as outside. More smartphone users now access news in bed
(46%) than use the device when commuting to work.



• Voice-activateddigitalassistantsliketheAmazonEchoare
emerging as a new platform for news, already outstripping
smart watches in the US and UK.



• Intermsofonlinenewssubscriptions,wehaveseenavery
substantial ‘Trump bump’ in the US (from 9 to 16%) along with a
tripling of news donations. Most of those new payments have
come from the young – a powerful corrective to the idea that
young people are not prepared to pay for online media, let
alone news.



• Acrossallcountries,onlyaroundoneinten(13%)payforonline
news but some regions (Nordics) are doing much better than
others (Southern Europe and much of Asia).



• Ad-blockinggrowthhasstalledondesktop(21%)andremains
low on smartphones (7%). Over half say they have temporarily
disabled their ad-blocker for news in countries like Poland
(57%), Denmark (57%), and the United States (52%).



• Wehavenewevidencethatnewsbrandsmaybestrugglingto
cut through on distributed platforms. In an experiment tracking
more than 2,000 respondents in the UK, we found that while
most could remember the path through which they found a
news story (Facebook, Google, etc.), less than half could recall
the name of the news brand itself when coming from search
(37%) and social (47%).



• AustriansandSwissaremostweddedtoprintednewspapers,
Germans and Italians love TV bulletins, while Latin Americans
get more news via social media and chat apps than other parts
of the world.