Social Media Overtakes Television As Young People's Main Source of News, Says Report (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Of the 18-to-24-year-olds surveyed, 28% cited social media as their main news source, compared with 24% for TV. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism research also suggests 51% of people with online access use social media as a news source. The report, now in its fifth year, is based on a YouGov survey of about 50,000 people across 26 countries, including 2,000 Britons. Facebook and other social media outlets have moved beyond being "places of news discovery" to become the place people consume their news, it suggests. And news via social media is particularly popular among women and young people. The study found Facebook was the most common source -- used by 44% of all those surveyed -- to watch, share and comment on news. Next came YouTube on 19%, with Twitter on 10%. Apple News accounted for 4% in the US and 3% in the UK, while messaging app Snapchat was used by just 1% or less in most countries. According to the survey, consumers are happy to have their news selected by algorithms, with 36% saying they would like news chosen based on what they had read before and 22% happy for their news agenda to be based on what their friends had read. But 30% still wanted the human oversight of editors and other journalists in picking the news agenda and many had fears about algorithms creating news "bubbles" where people only see news from like-minded viewpoints. Most of those surveyed said they used a smartphone to access news, with the highest levels in Sweden (69%), Korea (66%) and Switzerland (61%), and they were more likely to use social media rather than going directly to a news website or app. The report also suggests users are noticing the original news brand behind social media content less than half of the time, something that is likely to worry traditional media outlets.

Comments

News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we honestly call the click bait articles on social media news?

Re:News?

[jellomizer]

We never had good news before so what is the difference?
Sure back in the 1950-1990 we had our "trusted" news on TV. However they tried to cover a Whole days of activity around the world in 1 hour. The first half covering Local and State News, the second half World and National News. So much of the coverage didn't spend more than a few minutes on the topic.
The News Papers had much more depth to them. However during newspapers popularity there was a much lower literacy rate, so a good portion of the population couldn't fully read them, and just read what they could. So the headlines. Which is much shorter than a Twitter post.
Political Bias, Corruption and special interests were just as part of the media in the past as it is now, it may be worse, however why would the media cover its own problems that will make you lose faith in it.
For example look at the Electoral college results for presidential elections You see nearly solid political US results during during the time of TV News. Then with the internet and cable news you see the Maps becoming more diverse.
While it may because of more polarization, but it is also because people are getting exposed to different ideas thus need to make their decisions from more data.
The Media liked JFK, so his indiscretions were ignored. The Media didn't like Nixon so he was kicked out of office. TV News made it easy to push an agenda.

Now Social media had made politics very messy. And some good and bad has come out of it. People are less trustful of the establishment candidate and want someone more outside. Hence the Trump and Sanders supporters, who feel that they had been told what to do for so long that they are trying to get a new voice free of this is how it is done. But this also creates the Problems with the Trumps and Sandars who are focused on particular issues and not the general complexities of running a government. Because of the wide coverage they can just talk about what drive the person passions and gloss over the details and complexities, as social media being more end user driven will focus on the reasons why they are voting for or against a person. While the more formal News did try to keep the information more broad and civil.

Re:News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideas or propaganda? It is very easy to make up bullshit and inject it in social media as "fact". Hell, we have countries who know this and actually have dedicated propaganda divisions just to go out and troll the Net. Look how easily people swallow it as well.

Here in the US, people are unfriending/unfollowing/ranting at each other left and right, blaming the gun owners for the massacre, while saying that the guy who pulled the trigger was just part of the system and "venting", and would have been harmless had the evil 2A guys not shoved an AR-15 assault weapon in his hands with a 100 round drum clips [sic]. Other countries, they would spend time looking at why the guy was radicalized, and start tracing down contacts to check for accomplices. Here in the US, it becomes a red herring for both the left and right to go at each other with their agendas.

Really?

[ledow]

Social media? Gosh, the only thing more unreliable than the news channels.

Did you know, Facebook are soon going to make you pay unless you click this link before the 1st of June/July/August/September?

Did you know: this local crime happened (actually four years ago) and this little girl needs money for a life-saving operation (actually dead already), etc. etc. etc.?

Social media is the new gossip. The junk on there is really atrocious, and when news is discussed most of what pops up on social media is rumour and/or just outright lies.

If anything, my primary source of "news" is a web search. Not even a news search because that's just mainstream news lumped into one item. Even things like Wikinews at least have some element of journalism and truth to them more often that the TV channels or papers.

But social media? Really? Maybe that's how you hear *OF* a story, because you're always connected as a young kid, but for that to be your source of details of the news? That's just scary.

Can't be much worse than womans mags

[Viol8]

The psuedo scientific drivel my wife reads in these moronic magazines just beggars belief sometimes. Whether its health, diet or beauty advice, most of it seems to be either made up on the spot with no scientific basis, either by the know-nothing neurotic maghag "journalists" , or by whatever crank they've waved some money at and who can string together enough semi coherent sentences to create an article out of. I genuinely believe some of these magazines should come with a health warning on the cover because of the rubbish they peddle to impressionable girls.

Re:That explains quite a lot

[bickerdyke]

It is the Voice of America news service and because it is a tiny government funded news service it really tries to provide a balance coverage without any spin. The reason is that it does not have to find sponsors and it is so tiny no one in the government bothers with it.
Before you dismiss it just take a look at.

Which is somehow ironic considering what VOA has been founded to be....

Re:That explains quite a lot

[Jack_of_Shadow]

the problem is that 'traditional' 'news' sources no longer have journalists in them, they only have editorialists. They don't report the news, they spin the news to match their opinions, they use rhetoric to 'guide' your opinions and they don't actually want you to know the 'facts' they simply want to tell you what to think. Kinda like one man shoots up a night club, and instead of being allowed to demonize the religion he says he did it for, we demonize the weapons he had, and by extension demonize anyone in the country who has such weapons. We can't demonize one class, but we can demonize the other, because that is what the 'traditional' news sources say.

Re:That explains quite a lot

[ledow]

There's a reason that many workplace policies dealing with the media is "No comment". It's got nothing to do with hiding what happened (that will come out anyway), it's got everything to do with the source.

"A member of staff said"
"Insiders at the company tell us"
"A representative was quoted as saying".

Whereas if all they get is "A passerby commented" or "A witness was heard to say", then it instantly removes their credence.

It's not what was said (look at the nonsense spouted to media in any incident, including that they saw the policeman do this, or they heard 20 gunshots or whatever, compared to the CCTV of the same). It's who said it, in what capacity ("I heard that", "I think that", "It sounded like", etc.), and when that are much more important than the actual words.

Quotes are easy to come by. Quotes from officials are harder. And when the story is entirely "witness quotes" plus "the company was unavailable for comment" it's infinitely better than something which can be misconstrued as "We have it on the authority of person X working at the company that Y happened", whether that's true or not.

Watergate

[sjbe]

how about one that implies some kind of fixed morality to the world that justified taking Nixon out while leaving Hillary Clinton free, considering they both did pretty much the same thing.

Exactly when did Hillary Clinton wiretap the Democratic Party Headquarters? When did she order the CIA to block the FBI's investigation? When did Hillary force the Attorney General and Deputies to resign? When did Hillary authorize the White House to pay blackmail payments?

Hillary hasn't even come close to the lack of ethics shown by the Nixon administration. If you think otherwise you don't understand the Watergate scandal well enough.

Re:The Media

[Sir_Eptishous]

The truth about Nixon is that he was living in an age with basically a single-source media - Television.

Only someone with absolutely no knowledge of history would say this.
Newspapers were still the major source of news in the early 1970s.
Especially investigative journalism of the sort that exposed Nixon.