How people get local news and information in different communities

In January, 2011 the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the Knight Foundation, conducted a nationally representative telephone survey of U.S. adults exploring local news consumption habits. Overall, the survey indicated that most adults follow what is happening in their local communities and that the local news ecosystem is complex.

Rather than relying on one or two main sources of local news, most adults use a wide variety of both traditional and online sources depending on which local topic they are seeking information about. This report reexamines those data with an eye toward how local news consumption practices vary by community type. Specifically, it focuses on the ways residents in large cities, suburbs, small towns and rural areas compare in their levels of interest in local news, the topics they are most interested in, and the sources they rely on to learn about those topics. The results indicate that from large urban areas to rural communities, Americans often report similarly high levels of interest in news in general, in local news and information, and in national and international news. Moreover, similar percentages of adults report following the specific local topics asked about, regardless of the type of community in which they live. Still, community differences do emerge in the number and variety of local news sources used, as well as the degree of “local news participation” and mobile news consumption.