Overview: Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources

Posted by Dennis G. Jerz on August 18, 2008 12:03 AM | | Comments (0) ~
The latest Pew report:

Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many people now say they go online for news regularly (at least three days a week) as say they regularly watch cable news (39%); substantially more people regularly get news online than regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%).

Since 2006, daily online news use has increased by about a third, from 18% to 25%. However, as the online news audience grows, the educational divide in online news use - evident since the internet's early days in the mid-1990s - also is increasing. Currently, 44% of college graduates say they get news online every day, compared with just 11% of those with a high school education or less.

Net-Newsers and Integrators take advantage of a range of web features to get the news. Roughly four-in-ten (39%) Net-Newsers - and about a third of Integrators (32%) - have gotten a news story emailed to them in the past week. And while 30% of Net-Newsers regularly watch news online, 19% regularly listen to news on the web.

Net-Newsers and Integrators also rely on news and political blogs as a part of their news diet. Roughly a quarter of Net-Newsers (26%) and somewhat fewer Integrators (19%) say they regularly read blogs on politics or current events. Overall, only 10% of the public regularly reads political and news blogs.

Other tidbits...
  • " Integrators, who get the news from both traditional sources and the internet, are a more engaged, sophisticated and demographically sought-after audience segment than those who mostly rely on traditional news sources. Integrators share some characteristics with a smaller, younger, more internet savvy audience segment - Net-Newsers - who principally turn to the web for news, and largely eschew traditional sources. "
  • "Most of the loss in [newspaper] readership since 2006 has come among those who read the print newspaper; just 27% say they read only the print version of a daily newspaper yesterday, down from 34% in 2006."
  • "About a third of those younger than 25 (34%) say they get no news on a typical day, up from 25% in 1998."


Categories: Current_Events , Cyberculture , Journalism , Media , Technology

Leave a comment


Type the characters you see in the picture above.

Search

Recent Related Entries

Teen Using MySpace to Lure Bands to Los Angeles
A thirteen-year-old girl posing as a record executive on MySpace has lured several bands to Los Angeles with promises of a record contract. -- BBspotThe concept is good, but the writing doesn't sustain the joke. The reason The Onion is...

In New Media Programs, Who Benefits?
In today's landscape, defining "the media" isn't nearly as clear-cut as it used to be. Big-name newspapers and networks mingle with cable channels, all-purpose Web sites and blogs in the minds of the average news consumer, and for good...

The Changing Newsroom
Thanks, Becca, for forwarding this link about how the American newspaper has changed in the past three years.  Last semester my journalism students did a unit on community journalism, and they wrote long features that were destined for our new...

Helping the Almost-Journalists Do Journalism
As traditional news organizations face increasing pressure to cut back on investigative reporting and depend more heavily on celebrity and puff pieces (cheap to produce, attractive to advertisers, accessible to a mass audience), Dan Gillmor suggests that advocacy groups such...