News on social media is now mainstream
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News consumption in the U.S. has reached an inflection point. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Novosafo. For the first time, more Americans are getting news from social media and online video networks versus television programs or websites. That's according to a report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

The group has studied news consumption globally for more than a decade, and its latest report found a significant digital shift in the U.S. Nick Newman is one of the co-authors. You know, television's always been king. And every year we see the percentage of people who proportion who are consuming news via TV falling and decreasing.

Certainly in the last year, we've seen a very significant increase in the percentage saying that they consume via some kind of social video network. So that's now over 50% and much higher with younger demographics as well. So that feels like a watershed moment. And, you know, I think it's fueled by

by some of the other trends that we see in the US market. So the rise of the creator economy, individuals, personalities leaving traditional media organizations, setting up on their own because they think they can have more control and ultimately they can reach audiences in new ways at a much cheaper cost.

And what do you think is the significance of this shift that we're seeing? Is this going to permanently alter what we see or the news we do get? Or what is the result of this?

I think the result is still emerging. I mean, some people would argue that it's a good thing that the traditional media has a particular set of biases or agendas, and it's broadened the range of debate. Other people would argue that a lot of the creators and influencers are telling stories in more compelling ways and that the media needs to wake up to a lot of those things. But then others will say that a lot of these creators are basically just living off the back of news organizations who create the news, which is very expensive to gather.

and distribute and they're basically just perversions of opinion which is very cheap and easy to do and much of it is laced with misinformation or conspiracy theories now you know there's a huge range of creators here some of them are doing great work some of them are doing explanatory journalism investigative journalism

And so it's very hard to talk about, you know, one thing because it's really this explosion of different types of journalism, creativity, opinion, and all the rest of it. And when you see this shift to social media consumption, video consumption, is video the main element of it? Is it podcasts? I understand that it's not necessarily like one thing, but there are kind of

prevailing directions that we're seeing content going. Yeah, I mean, YouTube is really the sort of big driver of it, because that's really where you've got a lot of these long opinion based shows that many of them actually started out as podcasts, as audio, but have become increasingly about video. And it's actually much of it is very hard to distinguish what is what is a podcast anymore, because so much of that, particularly in the US, is now distributed by video.

So you've got sort of in many ways what you've got is traditional television talk shows or radio talk shows moving into this online space and moving over to YouTube. And then you've got other sort of niche subscriptions, almost business to business, which is through networks like Substack. And then you've got sort of youth based stuff around Twitch or Discord or a whole range of other networks that are now available.

And is the growth of video podcasting a big element of this shift that we're seeing? Yeah, I think so. And this is linked to YouTube and YouTube's commitment to podcasting, increasing commitment to podcasting, actually. News podcasting was never really a thing until about 2017, I think it was, that The Daily launched.

And in the last few years, they've been not completely eclipsed, but partly eclipsed by this rise of the talk show, the opinion show, much of that partisan in the US, which is very much in a sort of US talk show tradition. We don't see that to the same extent elsewhere. And a lot of that is really easy to just film. You know, it's just people talking, mainly men, talking in big microphones to other men. And this seems to really appeal to some Americans.

And in the American market, you kind of looked at the influencers that are predominating, these creator influencers, and you found that there is partisan influencers on both sides, but one side dominates.

Once I dominate, I don't think that's going to be a surprise. You know, Pew and others have done a lot of work on looking at this. But yeah, the top five influencers, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, of course, many of these essentially are journalists who used to work for traditional media and now think that they can have more control in this new environment. So it's not exactly sort of breaking new ground. It's very different from people on the left as well. So Brian Tyler Johnson and David Pakman, people like that.

But they don't get such big audiences. And there's been a lot of discussion about why it is that the right is able to drive, you know, such huge audiences, such huge loyalty in the U.S. And I think much of it is to do with the sort of simplicity of those messages that really resonate with a lot of people, a lot of people who are disaffected in the U.S. And that obviously is linked to the rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement in the U.S. as well. We'll be right back.

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You're listening to Marketplace Tech. I'm Novosafo. We're back with Nick Newman of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. His new report shows more Americans are now getting their news from online networks than from other sources. Who's driving this shift when it comes to social media and video consumption versus traditional television news or traditional news websites?

Is it just a matter of younger people being an increasing percentage of the pie of the audience and they just prefer that format or is it something else? A lot of it is driven by demographics, by younger people, particularly that sort of youngest group, the sort of so-called social natives who grew up with social media.

And they have a much weaker connection to traditional brands. And they are driven much more by convenience, by speed, by lack of friction. They find shows they like about politics in addition to following fashion influencers or food influencers or whatever else they're consuming.

It's worth saying that in the U.S. in particular, it's not just young people. It's also the politics and people finding the kind of shows and the extension of opinions within these networks that they feel they're not getting from more traditional media outlets. And if there is a ray of hope for the traditional news organizations out there who are doing well-researched primary source journalism,

You found that their brand for organizations that have maintained that kind of practice decade after decade, that they still have a very strong brand, right? There's a trust built in with the audience. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really interesting time where on the one hand, we're seeing sort of a rise of misinformation, a lot of concern about misinformation, particularly in the United States.

So we ask people, you know, if you want to check some information, that is really important. Where do you go? And, you know, traditional news brands or news brands that I trust come right at the top. And when you ask them what those brands are, they are the ones that have been around for a while that have that reputation for checking, for verification. So, you know, public broadcasters, market newspapers, some of these kind of brands. And this is true for young people and old people as well.

On the other hand, younger people are also checking in lots of different ways. They are skeptical of all information. And so they lean into some of this horizontal trust. So much more about personalities, maybe the comments in a TikTok. That is often the first place you look to see if this information is true or not. You might check what other people are saying about it. So, you know, I do think the nature of trust is changing a little bit less institutional trust, a little bit less and a bit more horizontal trust.

Nick Newman is with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. We'll link to his full report on our website, marketplacetech.org. Jesus Alvarado produced this episode. I'm Nova Safo, and that's Marketplace Tech. This is APM. Hey, everyone. I'm Rima Khez, and I'm excited to join Kimberly Adams on Make Me Smart.

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