Overview
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a representative YouGov survey of online news consumers in the UK, US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan and Denmark.
This website contains unique data and analysis about the rise of tablets and smartphones, generational and country based differences in media usage, the growth in digital news payment and the role of brand and trust in an increasingly competitive multi-platform world.
Key findings
Introduction
Mobiles and tablets
- Across all our countries, one third of our sample (31%) say they use a smartphone for news at least once in the past week. More than one in ten (16%) use a tablet.
- Tablet use for news has doubled in many European countries in the ten months since our last survey.
- 33% now consume news on at least two devices. The more devices owned, the more frequently people tend to access the news.
- Read more on mobile and tablet usage
Finding and sharing news
- Over 40% of our sample in France, Germany, Italy and Spain say they rely more on search than brand as a way of finding news. The UK and Denmark tend to go first to brand
- Social networks are becoming a key gateway to news for younger people. In the United States 38% of under 45s and in urban Brazil 62% of under 45s say they find news this way
- Read more on gateways to news
Paying for news
- Whilst 50% of our global sample said they had bought a printed newspaper, only 5% said they had paid for digital news in the last week.
- In the UK, we have seen a significant jump in the percentage paying for news since our last survey – from 4% to 9% paying for some kind of digital news in the last year.
- Smartphone and tablet users in the United States are much more likely to pay for news – even after controlling for factors such as income and interest in news.
- Read more on paying for news
Sharing and participation
- Across our countries, around one in five share a news story via email (17%) or a social network (20%) each week.
- Users in Brazil, the US, Spain, and Italy are most likely to post comments, share links, and talk about news. The Japanese and Germans are least likely to do so.
- Users of Apple smartphones in the United States were 41% more likely to share news than other digital news users after controlling for other variables.
- Read more on participation
About us
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report aims to deliver useful and timely data about the transition to digital. Read more about our annual survey ...
Survey Methodology
This research was conducted by YouGov at the end of January/beginning of February 2013. Find out more about the polling methods.
Resources
You can view or download a Powerpoint presentation of all of the charts and tables in the 2013 report.
