Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Releases 2019 Digital News Report; Topics Include Trust, Misinformation, News Subscriptions, Use of Social Media platforms, and More

From the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (U. of Oxford):

The Reuters Institute’s eighth annual Digital News Report is based on a survey of 75,000 news users in 38 countries across the world including in Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and, for the first time, Africa where we have looked at news trends in South Africa. It looks at audience trends and perspectives including levels of trust, concern over misinformation, the impact of populism, news subscriptions, changing use of social media platforms and more.

Key Findings

• Around the world, the proportion paying for any online news has increased only slightly, with this growth being limited to a few Nordic countries. Even in countries where people pay in higher numbers, most only do so for one title.
• Social communication is becoming more private with people continuing to turn away from Facebook. WhatsApp is becoming the primary social communication tool for news in many countries in the Global South including Brazil (53% usage for news), Malaysia (50%) and South Africa (49%).
• Concern around misinformation is high in many countries despite efforts by platforms and publishers to build public confidence.
• Trust in news in general is down by 2 percentage points to 42%, and less than half (49%) trust the news that they themselves use.

Resources

Direct to Full Text Report (HTML Version)

• Overview & Key Findings
• Further Analysis and Comparison
• Paying for Online News Explored
• Analysis by Country
• Interactive
• Methodology
• Resources

Direct to Full Text Report
156 pages; PDF.

Direct to Report Web Site
Includes Links to Commentary and Additional Resources

Direct to Interactive Data Tool

Direct to Slide Presentation of Report Findings

Highlights Video

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, News, Patrons and Users