2022 Reuters Institute Digital News Report

In News 

• According to the 2022 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, trust in news is falling in nearly half the countries surveyed.

About the report 

• It is an annual report commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism which tracks how news is consumed in different countries.
• This year’s report is based on a survey conducted by YouGuv, a British market research and data analytics firm, in January/February 2022 through online questionnaires. 
  • It covers 46 markets in six continents. 

Major trends highlighted in the report

• The report documents the ways in which “the connection between journalism and much of the public may be fraying”. 
• It flags six major trends which could have wider socio-political implications.
  • People are trusting news content less and less. 
  • Consumption of traditional news media declined in nearly all the countries surveyed. 
  • The proportion of news consumers who say that they “avoid news” has risen sharply across countries, with the report describing the phenomenon as “selective avoidance”. 
  • Despite small increases in the proportion of people willing to pay for online news (mostly in richer countries), the growth in digital subscriptions for news content seems to be levelling off. 
  • The smartphone has become the dominant way in which most people first access news in the morning”.
  • While Facebook remained the most-used social network for news, it is TikTok that has become the fastest-growing network, “reaching 40% of 18-24-year-olds, with 15% using the platform for news”. 
    • TikTok, however, is currently banned in India.

‘Selective Avoidance’ of News

• A growing minority is increasingly choosing “to ration or limit their exposure to it — or at least to certain types of news.
  • The report calls this behaviour “selective avoidance” and this is one of the reasons why news consumption levels have failed to increase as per expectations. 
• Across markets, respondents cited a variety of reasons for this avoidance. 
  • Repetitiveness of the news agenda — especially around politics and COVID-19 (43%). 
  • Worn out by the news (29%). 
  • Non Trust (29%)
  • About one-third (36%), especially those under 35, said that news ruined their mood. 
  • About 17% said they avoided news because it led to arguments they would rather avoid, while 16% said reading the news led to feelings of powerlessness. 
    • A small percentage (14%) said that they didn’t have time for news while 8% said that they found it too hard to understand.

Preferred modes of News consumption

• Across markets and age groups, text is still king when it comes to news consumption. 
• However, younger audiences, especially ‘digital natives’ who grew up with networks like Facebook and TikTok, were more likely to say they “watch the news”.
  •  In India, 58% said that they “mostly read” the news while 17% said they “mostly watch” it. 
  • On the other hand, the comparable figures for Finland, which has a historic pattern of high newspaper consumption, was 85% and 3% respectively.

• “Direct access to apps and websites” were becoming less important over time, giving ground to social media, which is becoming more important as a gateway to news due to its “ubiquity and convenience”. “

What does the report say about trends in India?

• India is a strongly mobile-focussed market,72% of the survey respondents accessed news through smartphones and 35% did so via computers.
  • 84% of the Indian respondents sourced news online
  • 63% from social media, 59% from television, and 49% from print.
  • YouTube (53%) and WhatsApp (51%) were the top social media platforms for sourcing news. 
  • India registered a small increase in the level of trust, with 41% trusting news overall. 

Source:TH