Pew's Web@25 Studies

The Pew Research Center has released a series of reports on the history, status, and future of the Internet, in conjunction with the 25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web.

The Web at 25 in the U.S. looked at a range of surveys looking at how the Internet is used by people, and their views of the Internet and the content and services it offers.  Over the 25 years of the Web, internet usage among U.S. adults has grown from 14% to 87%.  90% of those surveyed earlier this year indicated that the Internet has been beneficial for them, while 76% indicated that they thought the Internet had been good for society.  In fact, the Internet is the technology that people are least willing to give up.  In fact, a range of digital and mobile technologies have become an integral, and crucial, part of people's lives.

And while press coverage and political discussions often focus on the more negative aspects of the Web, most users (76%) report that they've been treated well (kind or generous) in their online interactions, two-thirds (67%) felt that online communication has strengthened their relationships with friends and family, more than half (56%) indicate they've witnessed online groups coming together to help people or to solve a community problem.  In contrast, only 25% report ever been treated badly or have ever abandoned a site or service because it's gotten ugly (users attacked or discussions becoming virulent).

Digital Life in 2025 summarizes the predictions of a group of key experts.  Most agreed on the key technological trends - that the Internet will become even more ubiquitous, integrated, and immersive; that the Web will increasingly integrate tags, sensors, apps, and intelligent agents to facilitate people's ability to use online content and services.  They also widely agreed that the digital network economy will disrupt 20th century business models.  This can be beneficial, creating the potential for fostering awareness and understanding, building relationships, and promoting collaboration and social group action.  On the other hand, the same potential can provide opportunities for abuse.  But the biggest threat is the possibility that nations (or other organizations) could co-opt the network, restricting and limiting the Web's potential through imposed regulations and structured access - turning the Internet into an instrument of political and social control rather than an open marketplace.

The choices we make today - our willingness to trade freedom for security, diversity for the safety of conformity, and privacy for convenience - will go a long way to determining what kind of internet we'll have in the future, and whether it remains a social good, or a mechanism for control.

Sources -  What the Internet of 2025 Might Look Like,  WSJ.com
The Web at 25 in the U.S.,  PewResearch Internet Project report
Digital Life in 2025,  Pew Research Internet Project report

Pew releases 2013 State of News Media report and Infographic

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its annual report on the state and status of News Media.  The 2013 Report is based on 2012 numbers, and shows continued declines in many traditional news areas.
  High among the issues is what Pew terms a decline in news reporting resources.  Continued newspaper newsroom cutbacks put industry employment below 40,000 full time employees (the lowest since 1978) and 30% below peak newspaper employment levels in 2000.  And this spring and summer has seen many newspapers cut their photo departments, instead telling their reporters to use their cellphones to photograph events.  This has impacted content, with Pew research showing that sports, weather, and traffic now account for 40% of newscast content, while the average length of video news stories continues to shrink.  Cable news channel live coverage shrank some 30%, while interview segments increased 31%.  As the report summarizes,

This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands. And findings from our new public opinion survey released in this report reveal that the public is taking notice. Nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to.

The report also notes that the last few years have also seen a significant rise in newsmakers and others seeking to put information in front of people using online and social media to take their message directly to the people, without the gatekeeping and contextualizing that news organizations normally provide.  A study suggested that in 2012, that resulted in campaign reporters acting more as megaphones for the campaign than objective (and critical) reporters.  One consequence, Pew found, was that in all the coverage of the character and records of the candidates, less that a quarter originated from traditional reporting activities, while more than half originated from claims by political partisans.
  The good side of this trend is that groups and organizations with more specific interest and expertise, were using the Internet to provide coverage of topics that traditionally have not been a major component of traditional news products (for example, health, science, environment).

I'll try to get to take a look at the reports details in later posts.  Meanwhile, you can grab the infographic at http://stateofthemedia.org/files/2013/03/2013-State-of-the-News-Media-Overview-Infographic.png

Source:  The State of the News Media 2013, report from Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism

Online News Use continues Rise

Two recent studies, one in the U.S. and one in the U.K., are indicating that at least half of adults go online for news.  The two differ in methodology and in how use is measured, so I'll discuss them separately.

The U.K. study comes from the Office for National Statistics, and looks at Internet Access by individuals, and within households.  The survey found that Internet access in Great Britain continues to grow and diffuse: 73% of adults report using the Internet daily, 53% now access the Internet from mobile phones.  83% of households report having Internet access, and 42% had land-based broadband Internet connections.
  More than half of adults (55%) reported "reading or downloading online news, newspapers or magazines" on a daily basis, more than doubling the rate reported in 2007 (20%).  That change in usage was the biggest of the services reported. 

"In 2013, with reports of decreased physical newspaper readership, there has been media interest in how people will access the news in the future," said the ONS.

The survey also found that more than half (52%) of those UK adults have purchased reading materials online had done so through digital forms such as eBooks.  A substantial number also reported buying eBooks for the readers in their family.
  Usage among young adults (16-24) was greatest for leisure or recreational activities: 93% engaged in online social networking daily, 60% accessed wikis, 55% downloaded software, and 40% made phone or video calls over the Internet.  People in the 25-34 age group, on the other hand, had the highest use of regular activities like sending emails (89%), getting information on goods and services (i.e. shopping) (77%), and engaging in online banking (76%).  The highest growth in reported Internet usage was among older users, where daily use for seniors (65+)grew from 10% in 2006 to 38% in 2013 and reported daily use among those 55-64 grew from 37% in 2006 to 68% in 2013.

The U.S. numbers come from the Pew State of the News Media 2013 report.  In a survey conducted in 2012, Pew asked U.S. adults where they had gotten news "yesterday."  Respondents were allowed to cite multiple sources.  Half (50%) of respondents reported getting news from digital sources.  The only form used more was "TV" at 55%, but that number combined local and national broadcast news with cable news.

Pew does provide some further breakdowns - in 2012, 39% of respondents reported getting news online from mobile devices "yesterday."  That would still be the second highest platform usage, but when combined with other online access portals the use jumps to 50%.  About one in five respondents (19%) reported getting news from social media, while 16% reported getting news from email feeds and 8% said they'd listened to a news podcast.  There is an age break in online news usage - only 43% of those 50-64 reported getting news from online sources "yesterday", compared with 60% daily usage from those under 50.
  The other point that the Pew report makes is that online news use is the only format that has not been consistently trending downward over the last 20 years.  "TV" daily use has dropped from a high of 71% in 1994 to 55% in 2012.  Newspaper usage has dropped from a high of 57% in 1991 to 29% in 2012.  And radio as a daily news source has dropped from 54% in 1991 to 33% in 2012.  Yes, that's right - more American adults report getting their news from radio than report getting news from newspapers.

Not so good news for legacy formats, but still somewhat optimistic about news usage overall.

Sources -  More than half of Britons access news online, The Guardian
Statistical Bulletin: Internet Access - Households and Individuals, 2013, ONS.gov.uk
Digital: As Mobile Grows Rapidly, the Pressures on News Intensify, Pew Research Center
The full Pew report on The State of the News Media 2013 is available here.

Pew - Social Networks and Politics

A recent report from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project suggests that campaign and policy-related information shared on Social Network Services (SNS) can have a modest role in influencing user's views and political involvement.  The study, based on surveys conducted early this year, asked social network users their thoughts about politics and social media.  While the full study is worth a read, here's a few highlights -

• Social networks are not heavily used for political content.  84% of users indicated that they don't really post about politics on SNS, and 59% said that their friends don't either.  Only 6% indicated that their posts are mainly about politics, and another 10% said they had posted something about politics recently.
• Roughly a quarter of respondents indicated that political content on SNS was at least somewhat important in terms of finding others with similar political views, discussing or debating political issues with others, and recruiting others to get involve in politics. More than a third (36%) felt that social networking sites were at least somewhat important in terms of keeping up with political news.
• Self-identified Democrats were significantly more likely to indicate that social network sites, and political content on those sites, were important sources and tools.  Self-identified Republicans and Independents had very similar views about the importance of politics on social networks.  Blacks and younger adults were also slightly more likely to indicate that politics on social media was at least somewhat important and useful.
• Perceptions about the impact of political messaging on social networks was low and mixed.  When asked about the impact of SNS political content, 25% indicated that they were likely to become more politically active, while 9% indicated they were likely to become less involved.  Only 16% felt that political messages on social media had ever changed their views about a political issue. Interestingly, 18% of users indicated that they had blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone because of that person's political postings. 
• The use of social media for political content and discussion seems to be correlated with an individual's willingness to talk a lot about politics with their friends and family.
   

  The key finding here, however, is that the vast majority of users felt that political content shared via social media was not very important to them, and had minimal, if any, impact.  Still, the report concludes that "those who are quite politically attuned use social networking sites differently and get more out of them."


Sources - Social Networks and Politics, Research Brief from the Center for Media Research.
Politics on Social Networking Sites, research report from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project.

Online news users mostly 'casual'

A recent Pew report on online news use suggests that there are several distinct types of news consumers.
The study found that the largest group, accounting for more than half of online news users, could be classified as "Casual Users," those drawn to major stories through searches for more details.  Another major source for casual users was referrals, most often from social media sites such as Facebook.  The Pew study predicts that if search drove online news use over the last decade, that news referrals and news sharing through social media will be among the most important drivers of online news use in the next decade.
At the moment, "casual news users" - those who visit a particular online news site once or twice a month - account for 77% of the traffic to top news sites.  On the other extreme, "Power Users" - those who visit a site more than 10 times a month - account for only 7% of traffic, on average. Of the five online news sites with the highest proportion of "Power Users," the top two are cable news giants CNN (at 18%) and Fox News (16%), followed by Yahoo (14%), AOL News (13.4%), and Google News (12.6%).  The low number of Power Users and the failure of any traditional print outlet to appear near the top of the pile suggests that the prospects for building a subscription-based business model for online journalism aren't great.  Add to that another result - that less than 10% of online news users spend more than an hour per month at any one online news site - suggests that the world of online news users are comprised more of grazers, spreading their online news use across many sites and sources, rather than regular, habitual, users of any particular source.

Source: "Web News Users 'Casual, Facebook Driving Traffic,"  Online Media Daily
Pew report -  "Navigating News Online: Where People Go, How They Get There, and What Lures Them Away"

Understanding the Participatory News Consumer

A news item reminded me of a recent Pew Study in the area of online news.  In mousing around, I found the full report from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Project for Excellence in Journalism.  Some interesting results:

• 92% of Americans use multiple platforms (media) for news
• 33% of cell phone owners access news on their cell phones
• 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news
• 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, shared news stories with others, or commented on news reports.
• 55% of Americans think it's easier to keep up with the news today than it was five years ago
• 70% of Americans feel the amount of news and information available various sources is "overwhelming"

Some of these results suggest that the internet is not just expanding outlets and increasing competition, but is changing the nature of news consumption and dissemination.

Pew press release on study
Report's Summary of Findings - Online News survey (January 2010)
Download Full Report (pdf)

Generations 2010 - Pew Internet & American Life Project study

Pew Internet Center releases its report on generational differences in online use

Pew Internet Report - Generations 2010

Internet now dominant news source among younger viewers

A recent report from the Pew Center for People & the Press reports that the Internet is now the most widely used source for news among the 18-29 age group, and is approaching top status among college grads.
Television still dominates, as those reporting using newspapers as a main source continues to decline
Pew Survey Report