Chinese social network TikTok is gaining ground with younger audiences as Facebook loses influence, the Reuters Digital News Report 2023 (Reuters DNR 2023) released this Wednesday reveals.
The Reuters DNR 2023 is the 12th second annual report of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) and the 9th report covering Portugal, with 46 countries participating.
“With interest in and confidence in news declining in many countries, the economic downturn has put pressure on news business models”says the study.
This year’s edition of the Reuters DNR 2023 “provides evidence that news audiences are increasingly reliant on digital and social platforms, further straining media organizations’ ad-based and subscription-based business models” in a time when household and business spending are being squeezed”.
The report documents “how video-based content distributed through networks such as TikTok, Instagram and Youtube is becoming more important for news”, especially in the South, while platforms such as Facebook are “losing influence”.
Both interest in and trust in the news “continue to decline in many countries as the link between journalism and the general public continues to crumble,” says the study, noting that “there is evidence” that audiences continue to selectively select big stories avoiding “such as the war in Ukraine and the crisis of the cost of living” in an effort to reduce consumption of news they find depressing and protect their mental health.
These are some of the conclusions of the 12th edition of the report, which is available at www.digitalnewsreport.org/2023.
According to the study, Facebook is becoming “much less important as a news source” and this inherently has implications as a driver of traffic to news sites.
“Only 28% say they will access news via Facebook in 2023 compared to 42% in 2016,” the study concludes, pointing out that this “decrease” is partly explained by the social network’s less relevance as a source of information. news and, on the other hand, the role of video-based social networks such as Youtube and TikTok, which are increasingly attracting the attention of younger users.
For example, weekly news consumption on Twitter remained relatively stable in most countries after the acquisition [deste] by Elon musk, with the alternative use of nets such as the extremely low Mastodon,” he says.
Now TikTok is “the fastest growing social network in our study” and is used by 44% of 18-24 year olds “for any purpose (20% for news)”.
TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, “is most commonly used in parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa.”
TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat users tend to pay “more attention” to celebrities and “influencers” [influenciadores das redes sociais] than journalists or media companies when it comes to news topics.
This is “in stark contrast” to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, where news companies still command attention and lead conversation.
At the same time, “the public’s preferences for visiting news sites directly continue to decline,” he notes.
Of the 46 markets analyzed in the study, the share of those who say their main point of access is through the news site or an app (application) fell from “32% in 2018 to 22% in 2023, while the reliance on access to social networking has increased,” the study notes.
The 2023 Reuters Institute Digital News Report (Global) is written by Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Kirsten Eddy, Craig T. Robertson, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.
OberCom – Observatório da Comunicação worked as a strategic partner with RISJ in the design of the questionnaire for the Portuguese market, as well as in the analysis and interpretation of the data.
The total sample size is 93,895 adults, with approximately 2,000 per market.
The fieldwork was carried out at the end of January/beginning of February of this year and the research was carried out ‘online’.
The 46 markets are US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia and Romania.
Also includes Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
Source: DN
