Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by BeauHD on from the times-they-are-a-changin' dept.

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.

33 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      What this Anonymous Coward knows will shock you.

    2. Re:News? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:News? by reboot246 · · Score: 2

      We still have good news outlets today. The trick is to get your news from as many sources as you can find because each one will be slightly biased. Bias isn't always obvious. It can be as subtle as not reporting a story at all. If you just have one source you rely on, you may not even hear about major stories! Read the news from right and left perspectives, and everything in between. There are no unbiased news sources. Never have been.

      Today we can hear about a bad traffic accident or a murder on the other side of the country. When I was young only the major events made the news. There simply wasn't time. Local news was 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of national news. There was no CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or internet. Even newspapers and radio didn't cover everything.

      What we lack is history. Is it even taught in schools now? Without a knowledge of what has happened before, you don't have a context for what's going on now. Uneducated people getting their news from Facebook or Comedy Central scares the shit out of me. They vote, and they're uninformed voters. No wonder we get crappy leaders like Bush and Obama!

  2. That explains quite a lot by bickerdyke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OK, so now we have more people getting their news from facebook than from TV, newspapers or any "traditional" source.

    And then look at something like snopes.com to have an idea how much of this so called news are hoaxes, misinformation or blatant lies*!

    And none of them gets an even remote feeling that something as unreliable as facebook is as usefull as a rubber knife when you treat it as news source. Yes, it's great for cat pictures. And I love the "25 incredible stupid things stupid people did" stuff. But that's it. It's a SOCIAL media. Is your social environment a regular part of the news? No? See?

    * and sometimes misunderstood satire

    --
    bickerdyke
    1. Re:That explains quite a lot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In my experience, most newspapers are full of misinformation and blatant lies as well.

    2. Re:That explains quite a lot by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It is worse that that it will feed your bias. Even the true news stories will be tend to be the ones that fit your world view. Frankly I miss the good old days of the news back when it was mostly right in the middle to slightly to the left. What we have on the Internet is terrible because people will pick the news sources they like. Frankly we do not need to see the news that we agree with. We need to see the news that we do not.
      BTW people take a look at VOANews.com
      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.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    3. Re:That explains quite a lot by bickerdyke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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....

      --
      bickerdyke
    4. Re:That explains quite a lot by Jack_of_Shadow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      My not responding to your flame is in no way indicative of my submission to your statement, it just means I don't have t
    5. Re:That explains quite a lot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Right, but those are the advertisements, the personals section, and the opinion section. If you really try, you can find the news articles. Many of them quote lies (such as what Donald T. Rump said yesterday), but most of the articles aren't in themselves lies.

      Three times I've been involved in events covered by a newspaper.

      Out of any 10 random "facts" asserted by a newspaper article, in my experience 5 or 6 of those facts will be accurate, 2 or 3 will be wrong in some substantial way, and 1 or 2 will be flat-out fabricated.

      And this would be for simple, non-controversial things like a car accident.

      So whenever I read an article about something controversial in any way, I pretty much disbelieve all of it.

      I figure about 25% of the facts from stories written on Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are true and the rest are utter bullshit. The problem is, there's no way to tell which ones came out of the reporter's/editor's rectal database.

    6. Re:That explains quite a lot by ledow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  3. Really? by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Really? by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Even things like Wikinews at least have some element of journalism and truth to them more often that the TV channels or papers.

      This is the problem I have with the Press. They have too much power and influence.

      Currently, the UK is debating whether or not to remain in the EU. The UK's most popular* newspaper is telling its readers to vote out. The Press should not be allowed to influence its readers into making decisions based upon its** opinion.

      * Popular != Good
      ** The opinion of the editor

      --
      Summation 2
    2. Re:Really? by Coisiche · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's the owner's opinion, although I expect he would have hired an editor that aligned to his opinion.

      A journalist at another newspaper (not owned by Murdoch) had this in a recent column:

      I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. “That’s easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”

      It's the opener to this article.

  4. explains a lot. by bloodhawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That would explain why most kids now adays are so ill informed. My younger sister is 30 and lives on social media, it never ceases to amaze me the shit she believes or doesn't know about, especially around science where the just plain WRONG information is more abundant than facts on social media.

    1. Re:explains a lot. by Feral+Nerd · · Score: 2

      That would explain why most kids now adays are so ill informed. My younger sister is 30 and lives on social media, it never ceases to amaze me the shit she believes or doesn't know about, especially around science where the just plain WRONG information is more abundant than facts on social media.

      I could say the same about most Fox News watchers and Daily, Mail readers,.... the list goes on and on, except they are usually very angry too.

    2. Re:explains a lot. by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Informative

      I could say the same about most Fox News watchers and Daily, Mail readers,.... the list goes on and on, except they are usually very angry too.

      It's fine to be angry over something, even angry all the time if you want. But look at the people who are acting violently and attacking people, for the most part it's not those "angry fox news watchers" or "angry daily mail people" it's the ones getting their news via social media, media that thrives on clickbait or outrage culture. Fosters insular thinking and groupthink and/or supports authoritarian viewpoints and/or anti freedom of speech/expression. Take your pick. BLM, anti-trump protesters, DNC/RNC protesters, occupy wallstreet(after it was hijacked by progressives), anti-MRM groups. The people violently protesting individuals like Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, Gloria Steinem? They're the same ones who claim that they can't be racists because they're a minority or because they're a particular sex/race/religion and openly state that violence is a perfectly fine means of protesting.

      You should be paying attention a bit more.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  5. Perfect timing by RevRagnarok · · Score: 2

    Pair this with the recent problems at Reddit... :-/

    --
    I should put something clever here. Maybe someday.
    1. Re:Perfect timing by RogueyWon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The point of the Slashdot moderation scale is to control the visibility of posts. More highly moderated posts are more highly visible, but you can still see the low-moderated ones if you want. It's not really about measuring your e-peen. For the purpose for which it's intended, a 7-point scale is absolutely fine. Capping negative moderation at -1 means that posts which get "unfairly" moderated down soon after going live can be "rescued" relatively easily.

      I've seen sites which use uncapped community-moderation scales (e.g. Eurogamer). My experience with them is that they tend to have a much stronger culture of "+1 means agree, -1 means disagree" with less regard for the quality of the post than you get at Slashdot. They give a bigger incentive to try to tailor your posts to the group-think, by allowing users to aim for "high scores", where posts are moderated +100 or something silly like that.

    2. Re:Perfect timing by Nemyst · · Score: 2

      Moreover, Slashdot's moderation system has another important element: justification. On reddit and such, upvoting is basically "that guy speaks the truth!" or "I agree!" while downvoting is "man that's stupid" or similar, and thus becomes biased and more about whether the post/comment agrees with the majority or not. On Slashdot, you have to give a justification for why you're up/downvoting. It doesn't feel right to piggyback on "Insightful" or "Interesting" just because you agree, so it would seem like far fewer people do it. The same can be said for negative moderation — you might disagree with someone, but are they actually specifically trolling or offtopic? The words bear more weight than merely downvoting.

      Slashdot also makes a distinction between serious and funny posts, which helps separate things. The only flaw is Overrated/Underrated, but that doesn't appear to have corrupted the system so far, perhaps because they feel a bit like a cop-out.

  6. TV is history by c120plus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm closer to senior citizenship and get more news from Facebook than TV. Basically because I nowadays turn on the TV very rarely for live events (like the current football championship, the eurovision song contest or election results like the UK leaving Europe next week) and it stays off otherwise. If my current satellite TV system breaks down it will not get replaced, the usage doesn't justify keeping it. If I had to pay for TV beyond the TV license fee, it'd be gone already. So it doesn't suprise me that young people no longer care for TV as a news source or an anything source. It rarely covers important issues anyway. Of course I get most of my news from news web sites and blogs nowadays...

    1. Re:TV is history by NoNeeeed · · Score: 2

      You joke, but that's actually a more coherent plan than half the "Leave" campaign can put forward for real.

      The quality of the "debate" around the EU referendum has been one of the most depressing things I think I've ever seen in our political system, and that's saying something.

      --
      Paul Leader
  7. This is news ?? by Salgak1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm 54, and haven't relied on Television for news in well over a decade.

    Social media ? Not so much. Although I do use it as a bird-dogging tool. . . ."crowd-searching" the news, and then checking a few other sources.

    Lately, the noise-to-signal ratio on social media, and Fecesbook and Twatter, respectively, has approached 99%. . . .

  8. The theme song for this story by GreatOldOne · · Score: 2

    This story reminds me of the Weird Al Yankovic song, "Midnight Star".

  9. Can't be much worse than womans mags by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  10. The Media by sjbe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We never had good news before so what is the difference?

    Sure we have. We've also had crappy news before. It's trivial to point out examples of news done well over the last 100 years. It's even easier to point of examples of it being done badly.

    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.

    That's was the state of affairs basically until around the the late 1980s to early 1990s for television news. The first big change was CNN and the 24 hour news cycle. The second was the internet (specifically the web) in the 1990s.

    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.

    Literacy rates have been rather high for well over a century in the US, particularly for white americans. Literacy in the 1950s was well above 90%. The percentage of the population that couldn't read a newspaper in the US hasn't been over 10% since before 1910.

    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 evidence seems to show people doing exactly the opposite. People are now able to seek out niche news sources that support their already existing world view and disregarding contrary view points regardless of their validity.

    The Media liked JFK, so his indiscretions were ignored. The Media didn't like Nixon so he was kicked out of office.

    Must be nice to have such a simplistic world view. Nixon getting kicked out of office had a LOT more to it than whether "The Media" liked him or not. Saying something like that is the sort of idiotic sound bite we get from the Rush Limbaughs of the world. Sounds good to people who want it to be true even though it's complete nonsense in reality.

    1. Re:The Media by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
  11. The other side by olesk · · Score: 2

    What worries me more than social media becoming the primary source, is the idea that we should only read be interested in things we are already interested in.

    We're in a period of strongly polarized opinions where the idea of political discourse seems to be that you and me sit alone on our respective mountaintops and yell at each other. It bloody important to read news that doesn't fit your existing opinions or interests, how else will you ever question them? Or get new ones?

    I try to make a point of reading news sometimes from sources who's political alignment I clearly disagree with. It's annoying and refreshing (and allows me to smugly roll my eyes at the world occasionally). And just once every blue moon, I actually change my opinion or discover something interesting. In an ever more complex reality, we need more viewpoints, not fewer, and I'm worried that algorithmic filtering of news feels like a boon but is actually really detrimental to us all.

  12. Re:Newspapers? by flyingfsck · · Score: 2

    In the good old bad old days of printed newspapers, people also only read the papers that supported their preconceived notions. There is nothing new under the Sun, or the Times, or the Guardian...

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  13. How Many? by sycodon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How many news stories by the supposedly professional news gatherers are festooned with copies of tweets by some random joe? Many stories are 80-90% Twitter comments.

    Useless.

    Social Media hasn't taken over the News Media, the News Medaia is freely giving itself over to Social Media.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  14. The media in 1972 was more than just TV by sjbe · · Score: 4, Informative

    The truth about Nixon is that he was living in an age with basically a single-source media - Television. The TV news people weren't letting the story go, so he had to go.

    The Watergate story was broken by the Washington Post NEWSPAPER. If you think TV was the only news source in 1972-73 then you are completely clueless. Newspapers, magazine, TV, and radio were all substantial parts of the media in the early 1970s.

  15. Watergate by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.