Over the past four years we have been tracking a range of participation metrics around news. The next two charts show the overall percentage of respondents who interacted with news in one of 12 different ways.
Here, we see different participatory cultures at play. Latin and Mediterranean countries actively engage far more often and in a greater range of ways. Our two new countries Ireland and Australia are also comfortable participating and discussing news online – just as they tend to do offline. Some Northern European countries like Germany, the UK, and Finland tend to be more reserved, while Japanese respondents are even less likely to share or comment directly on news online.
Total participation, sharing and commenting by country
Base: Total sample in each country.
In most countries, levels of participation are relatively stable but we have seen significant shifts in Denmark and also in France, where our survey was conducted in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
In all countries we find that more people are willing to share than to comment – and sharing of news online has increased in many countries over the past year. Of those who comment, there are more people posting news via social networks than there were in 2013 but slightly fewer using news websites. This trend towards more conversations happening off-platform has led some news websites to close their message boards and forums over the past year.
Types of participation by country
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| US | UK | Germany | France | Ireland | Denmark | Finland | Spain | Italy | Urban Brazil | Japan | Australia | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share via Social Network (SN) | 21% | 14% | 13% | 18% | 21% | 19% | 18% | 34% | 30% | 47% | 9% | 21% |
| Share via email | 17% | 7% | 10% | 13% | 13% | 7% | 6% | 21% | 16% | 28% | 6% | 16% |
| Rate or like story | 16% | 8% | 14% | 18% | 14% | 20% | 11% | 32% | 16% | 17% | 5% | 16% |
| Comment in SN | 21% | 13% | 11% | 15% | 19% | 16% | 16% | 32% | 25% | 44% | 6% | 19% |
| Comment on news website | 15% | 7% | 6% | 8% | 10% | 7% | 8% | 12% | 13% | 20% | 4% | 10% |
| Write news blog | 4% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 2% | 1% | 2% | 5% | 4% | 5% | 2% | 1% |
| Post picture to SN | 10% | 4% | 6% | 9% | 10% | 9% | 8% | 17% | 10% | 20% | 3% | 10% |
| Post picture to news sites | 3% | 1% | 4% | 5% | 4% | 3% | 1% | 7% | 8% | 12% | 2% | 3% |
| Online vote | 25% | 15% | 14% | 22% | 16% | 14% | 15% | 21% | 18% | 19% | 4% | 14% |
| Campaign online | 5% | 5% | 6% | 6% | 5% | 3% | 4% | 7% | 6% | 7% | 2% | 7% |
| Talk friends online | 26% | 16% | 15% | 18% | 24% | 21% | 15% | 32% | 20% | 44% | 8% | 30% |
| Talk about news face to face | 45% | 42% | 40% | 33% | 52% | 58% | 46% | 48% | 42% | 45% | 24% | 54% |
| Total | 72% | 63% | 63% | 68% | 80% | 76% | 67% | 85% | 78% | 91% | 43% | 77% |
Base: Total sample in each country.
Motivations for sharing are of intense interest to news organisations and to academics. Studies have shown that content that drives a strong emotional response (either positive or negative) tends to become viral.1 Our data suggest that someone’s level of trust in the news may also be a factor.
In most countries, those who said they trusted or distrusted the news were more likely to share the news than those who neither trusted nor distrusted it. This association was not significant in Japan, Ireland, and Germany.
Trust and the impact on sharing
Q13. During an average week in which, if any, of the following ways do you share or participate in news coverage?
Base: Total sample in each country.
Though it may be tempting to assume that those who trust the news they consume would be more likely to share it, in most countries there was no significant difference in sharing news between those who trusted their news and those who distrusted it. This may point to the use of news sharing for the purposes of both criticism and ‘collaborative verification’.
It is clear from all the data in this report that we’ve seen a significant increase the discovery and sharing of news through social networks over the last few years. People are using social media far more as a source of news and as a filter of news. But in most of our countries this has been not been mirrored by an increase in participation.
A quarter of us (25%) may comment about news online each week but three-quarters don’t. Only 3% write a blog on a political or news issue, 5% take part in an online campaign. Online may bring us more convenience and control over when and where we access the news but it hasn’t transformed our experience and our relationship with news brands to the extent that many hoped – at least not yet.
- ‘What Makes Online Content Viral’, http://ldi.upenn.edu/uploads/media_items/virality.original.pdf ↩