March 1, 2010
Research compiled by Clyde Bentley
I wouldn't normally focus on a single research document, but the just-released Pew Research Center report"Understanding the participatory news consumer" is such a staggering compendium of news information that it could take a month to sort through. Let's try to put it into perspective:
The Three P's: A those letters to our venerable five W's. The heart of the Pew study was summed its finding that the relationship of Americans to news is becoming Portable, Personalized and Participatory. Cell phones, Web customization and Facebook are all part of the new media metrics.
I have news in my pocket: A third of U.S. mobile phone owners get news on their handsets. Seeing that 80% of us have cell phones, that amounts to 26% of all Americans use the small screen to get their news. Having spent the a week with 50,000 of the cell phone industry's finest at the World Mobile Congress, I expected as much. But this national survey is the first I've seen to document the extent of cell phone use for news already. And if you break those figures down a bit, you'll see they have an even more staggering impact on our industry.
That 26% is a whole lot more than a bunch of iPhone owners. ComScore said that as of December, only 17% of phones were of the app-loaded smart variety and the iPhone represented less than 7% of the total. But Pew also said 37% of cell phone users go online with their handset. What gives?
It means is that a lot of people to whom we pay little attention are using phones to get news of some sort. A basic phone can still receive text alerts and many feature phones access Facebook, Twitter or other sites with simple browsers. In fact, 11% of cell phone owners get news via text. Some people also are paying the per-megabyte fee to access the Web without subscribing to smartphone data plans. The report also details the subject people most oftent see with their phones. Weather tops the list and is available without a Web browser. But just behind is news and current events -- well ahead of sports and traffic.
The inescapable fact is that the use of sophisticated mobile phones is growing and with it, their use for news. The iPhone has been the media darling for several years, but Google's open-source Android platform is coming on strong and offers much the same capabilities. Nearly every phone maker planning to offer phones using the operating system -- Motorola told me it will release 35 Android phones this year.
Admob surveyed smartphone users last month and found the new system is edging up on the iPhone. Android users are predominately male and are younger than iPhone users, but the average user of each downloads about the same number of apps each month (though iPhone more often pay for apps). Add an Android app to you wish list.
I choose the news: If journalism is dying, why is news so popular? Pew found that 56% of Americans follow the news "all or most of the time" and that an amazing 99% say they get news from papers, TV, radio or the Internet daily. But they mix it up with their own recipe: 92% get news from multiple platforms. The Internet is more popular than newspapers and radio, but local TVstill leads.
The fact that 61% of Americans get some kind of news online is significant in other ways. Some 28% said they customize their home pages, which apparently means they are not browsing the Web for news. Instead, 57% said they rely on their two to five favorite news sites. That means the news organization that gets users to put links on their home pages is likely to win the day. Sounds like a great project for the promotions department.
The other Web surprise for me was that local news is not even near the top of the favorite topics list. Weather (81%) is by far most popular news received online, followed by national events (73%), health and medicine (66%), business (64%), international (62%) and science and technology (60%). However, 38% said they would like to get more neighborhood or community news. That leads me to wonder if the results are skewed by the huge number of people who have MSNBC, CNN, Yahoo or Google News as their default home page. My wife's PC came with MSNBC on the screen and she often simply forgot to check the local news.
Not to fear, friends help here and others keep up to date. Three-quarters of the respondents said they get news forwarded to them through e-mail or social networking posts. About half said they like to pass along news tidbits. Lesson: If your site doesn't have a one-click way of forwarding a story, you may be missing as many people as you get.
I'm part of the news: When I started working in citizen journalism back in 1994, the concept of non-professionals contributing news was absolute heresy. But the Pew study showed that 37% of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commentary about news or the dissemination of news. While only 9% said they have created an original story or opinion piece, 25% have commented on a story and 17% have posted a linke on a social networking site. Only 3% have Tweeted about news.
The personal attachment to the news was even more evident when people were asked why they consume it. Nearly three-quarters said they enjoyed talking about news with family, friends and colleagues -- the watercooler effect. Another 69% said they have a social or civic obligation to stay informed. But those concerned news users also struggle with media overload -- 70% said the amount of news and information available to them is overwhelming. That may link back to that big mobile phone statistic above. A recent study by Rudder-Finn Research showed cell phones have become the key to organizing their users. The report includes a great interactive graphic that explains cell phone use.
Your report card: I could go on for hours about the data in Pew's 51 pages, but I'll leave it to you to dig through information on news junkies, Web site attributes and the continuing delight in serendipity. As a professor, however, I can't end without passing along the grades the 2,259 survey respondents gave to the media.
B and D. The good mark is from the 63% who agreed that "Major news organizations do a good job covering all of the important news stories and subjects that matter to me." Nevertheless, 73% said "Most news sources today are biased in their coverage." No surprise -- the B came from liberals, the D from conservatives.
Contact Me:
E-mail - bentleycl@missouri.edu Twitter: http://twitter.com/MizzouBentley
