Sharp decline in appetite for news in recent years, Reuters Institute says
Sharp decline in appetite for news in recent years, Reuters Institute says
There's been a sharp decline in the numbers taking a strong interest in the news in recent years.
The authors of the institute's report said there was evidence that audiences "continue to selectively avoid important stories such as the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis as they cut back on depressing news and look to protect their mental health".>
Bingo. However,
But the figures are much higher for young users. One in five (20%) 18 to 24-year-olds get news from TikTok, up from 15% last year. The report says the platform "is the fastest growing social network in our survey". However, it is not necessarily news from traditional news providers. TikTok users are more likely to get news on the platform from celebrities, influencers or ordinary creators than mainstream news outlets or journalists.
This is far more worrisome.
Yes, bad news for democracy or society in general. Just look at Russia to see how a politically disengaged population fares.
I also wonder how much post-fact agendas have played their part.
I'd argue that the population isn't politically disengaged - Millennials and especially Gen Z are showing high rates of political participation relative to historic trends.
People have simply shifted to different sources. And this isn't just true for those on TikTok either - look at how many grandparents get their news from questionable Facebook groups.
The issue is that the internet - while making everything more accessible - has also proliferated sources that are confident, but incorrect (whether out of malice or not).
People are burnt out. I am worried about the trend of people getting news from places like tiktok going up
Half the problem is that a lot of news is not news worthy. Opinion and conjecture or what some bloke said is treated equally as things like mass shootings. Abd half the time the news is lacking in depth or analysis. I hate that Last Night Tonight is more insightful than the evening news.
Several issues here, but the top one is: no definition of "news."
You might think that's readily apparent, but I guarantee no one else draws the line between news and entertainment exactly where you do. This is unfortunately by design because outlets that make no differentiation get more clicks — and people who have consumed zero news believe they had a Thanksgiving-size portion of it and are well-informed.
Really good point.
I feel like the BBC article didn't explain a lot of the context/definitions.
The report itself is interesting, with insights into audience members' self-reported behaviors and preferences on all sorts of news-related topics, formats, and issues. Because it's global, it deals with concepts/definitions of news in many cultures. Unlike the short BBC writeup, the report frequently discusses when it has ceded an interpretation or definition to the audience member, including on the meanings of things like "media criticism" or "news and current affairs podcast". And this one somewhat related to your Thanksgiving-meal analogy:
"At a headline level, we find that avoiders are much less interested in the latest twists and turns of the big news stories of the day (35%), compared with those that never avoid (62%). This explains why stories like Ukraine or national politics perform well with news regulars but can at the same time turn less interested users away. Selective avoiders are less interested in all types of news than non-avoiders but in relative terms they do seem to be more interested in positive or solutions-based news. Having said that, it is not clear that audiences think much about publisher definitions of terms such as positive or solutions journalism."
Other context that I think would be easy for readers of the BBC article to miss: The research publication is called the Digital News Report, emphasis on digital, which focuses on how publishers can adapt their storytelling to meet audience's on, again, digital platforms. It's based a survey of, specifically, "online news consumers".
Anyway, : https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023
Man, "traditional networks like Facebook" makes me feel old. I'm in the early stages of a project that much of the executive summary (before they meander off into monetization challenges) seems to confirm has demand. It was looking completely different before I got on Lemmy, but now I'm starting to wonder if ActivityPub solves a couple of problems around bootstrapping without VC. You only need to appeal to the widest possible audience when they are the product.
When most "news" is opinion based speculation this makes sense.
I pretty much completely cut news out months ago and my mental health has improved immensely. I totally get the importance staying knowledgeable and up to date on world news, but it was just too much for me.
It feels like we need to cut more and more things out of our daily routines to maintain a good mental health level. News, the list of social media sites, talk radio.
Duh. Constant depressing topics and a shitty world will kind of cause something like that. Not to mention most articles these days are clickbait or highly agenda-driven.
I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that most "Big" news sites are paywalled nowadays. Hard to read a WaPo article if you, well, can't read it. We're pretty much forced to other 3rd party social media sites to get news beyond headlines.
Imagine that. Everyone already knows everything is shit.
BREAKING: Everything is still fucking shite!
Thanks man.
When capitalism falls and we have billionaire heads on pikes, let me know. That would be some pretty good uplifting news.