Research

The "Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017" confirms that the screens-of-preference for younger audiences are mobile and dynamic. But identifying the platform does not necessarily tell you the source of the news. Consumers may look at an online or social media site to find reporting from established journalism sources (e.g. CNN, The New York Times, Fox) or just as easily from ersatz self-proclaimed bloggers or alt news sources.

The 136-page report delves more deeply into the distinction between the reception platforms and the actual content of the news. The Reuters Institute, which conducted the global research (30 countries on five continents) with the University of Oxford, acknowledges that the findings are "a reminder that the digital revolution is full of contradictions and exceptions." The results are also a roadmap toward future news consumption patterns, quantifying current usage patterns and offering eye-opening ideas for media providers about where to focus for future news packaging. The findings raise questions, such as whether today's 18-to-24 year-olds (only 24% of whom now consider TV as a primary news source) will migrate to TV sets by the time they are 55+ years old.

California faces a growing class of “under-connected” households that rely only on smartphones for online access, a trend that may worsen the state’s economic inequality, according to a report released by UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. In 2017, more Californians — 87 percent of the state’s households — had broadband Internet connectivity at home. But of those, 18 percent had smartphones as their only computing devices, more than double the 8 percent just two years earlier.

While smartphones provide a cheaper, more portable way to get online, their limited computing power hinders the development of basic computing skills, leaving smartphone-only households much less likely to be integrated into California’s booming tech economy, experts said. Thirty-four percent of those without broadband at home cited the expense. They also acknowledged they felt disadvantaged in developing new career skills or taking classes, according to the poll, which surveyed more than 1,600 adults in six different languages.

Nearly a quarter of the city-dwelling population in the US isn’t connected to broadband internet, according to a recent IHS Markit and Wireless Broadband Alliance study charted for us by Statista. To be clear, the US is doing a better job at making the internet available to its urban population than many other large nations. But the disconnect that does exist is what happens when you mix the relatively high costs of entry for broadband in America with the number of lower-income people living in cities in the first place. As the study notes, this simply makes it difficult for those people to participate in society at the same level.

Millennials in America are more likely to have visited a public library in the past year than any other adult generation. A new analysis of Pew Research Center survey data from fall 2016 finds that 53% of Millennials (those ages 18 to 35 at the time) say they used a library or bookmobile in the previous 12 months. That compares with 45% of Gen Xers, 43% of Baby Boomers and 36% of those in the Silent Generation. (It is worth noting that the question wording specifically focused on use of public libraries, not on-campus academic libraries.) All told, 46% of adults ages 18 and older say they used a public library or bookmobile in the previous 12 months – a share that is broadly consistent with Pew Research Center findings in recent years.

Sixty-percent of respondents in a Morning Consult/POLITICO poll said they support rules that say internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon “cannot block, throttle or prioritize certain content on the internet.” The difference between supporters by party was 2 percentage points, with 59 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats backing the rules. The same percentage of tea party supporters and Democrats expressed strong support for net neutrality, at 37 percent.

Seventy percent of the general public agrees that news organizations "are subject to partisan agendas," with 85 percent of Republicans believing the news media is influenced by funding, according to a YouGov poll. "The rise of fake news, a growing multitude of media sources, and an increasingly polarized nation have Americans learning to take their headlines with a grain of salt," says the YouGov study. The research also shows that seven in 10 Americans agree that news organizations report stories in a way that's favorable to their owners. Not surprisingly, the poll differs along party lines, with 52 percent of Democrats believing the news media is influenced by funding. That number jumps to 85 percent when asking the same question to Republicans.

Hispanics are less likely than other demographic groups to access the internet, while whites continue to be more connected than anyone else, according to new data from internet research company eMarketer. In 2017, less than 80 percent of Hispanics in the US will access the internet at least once a month from any device compared with 85 percent of whites, thanks to socio-economic factors, as well as education. In general, the less educated and economically advantaged a person is, the less likely they are to use the internet, according to eMarketer. The disparity has lessened over time but is still prominent as the internet becomes increasingly integral to daily life.

Political campaigns can manipulate elections by spending as little as $400,000 on fake news and propaganda, according to a new report that analyzes the costs of swaying public opinion through the spread of misinformation online. The report from Trend Micro, a cybersecurity firm, said it also costs just $55,000 to discredit a journalist and $200,000 to instigate a street protest based on false news, shining a light on how easy it has become for cyber propaganda to produce real-world outcomes.

The Fake News Machine research paper comes at a time of increasing concern across the globe about the hacking of elections and the ways that fake news on social media has manipulated voters. The report delves into the underground marketplaces that can allow campaigns, political parties, private companies and other entities to strategically create and distribute fake content to shift public perceptions.

Mobile devices have rapidly become one of the most common ways for Americans to get news, and the sharpest growth in the past year has been among Americans ages 50 and older, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March. More than eight-in-ten US adults now get news on a mobile device (85%), compared with 72% just a year ago and slightly more than half in 2013 (54%). And the recent surge has come from older people: Roughly two-thirds of Americans ages 65 and older now get news on a mobile device (67%), a 24-percentage-point increase over the past year and about three times the share of four years ago, when less than a quarter of those 65 and older got news on mobile (22%).

The strong growth carries through to those in the next-highest age bracket. Among 50- to 64-year-olds, 79% now get news on mobile, nearly double the share in 2013. The growth rate was much less steep – or nonexistent – for those younger than 50.

Consumers aren’t comfortable with their data being collected by smart TVs, according to a survey conducted by Videa, Cox Media’s automated ad platform. The survey found that 48 percent of consumers said they were somewhat, mostly or completely uncomfortable with advertisers collecting Smart TV data. Only 39 percent said they are somewhat, mostly or completely comfortable with their data being collected by advertisers. The answer most given, at 21 percent of respondents, was that they were completely uncomfortable with the data collection.