A joint survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism studied the habits of American consumers with regard to their preferred sources for daily news.
According to the findings of the survey, a large number of Americans (92%) make use of various platforms to collect their daily news.
The most popular sources of daily news are local and national TV channels, followed in third place by the Internet. National and local newspapers and radio have not surprisingly fallen behind.
On an average day, almost 60% of Americans will access various online and offline sources of news.
Thanks to the proliferation of the Internet and mobile technology, the new multi-platform media environment is now portable, personalised and participatory.
33% of mobile phone users access the news through their mobile phones, thus making it portable. 28% of Internet users access news on topics that interest them personally via news feeds on their homepage, while 37% of Internet users participate in the act of dissemination of news by posting it on sites like Facebook and Twitter, with or without their personal comments.
People are also using their social networks to filter and assess the news. They also exchange stories through email. 75% of online news receivers, do so via email or social networking and 52% of them share the news with others in the same manner.
Most online news consumers do not have a particular favourite news site, and access a variety of sites to collect their daily news.
While 55% of Americans say that it is easier to stay up-to-date about news and information than it was 5 years ago, 70% of those surveyed feel overwhelmed by the number of news sources now available to them.
