This is our third annual report that looks to track and compare changes in online news consumption across countries. This year we find more compelling evidence about the pace of the multi-platform revolution and the increasing use of smartphones and tablets for news. The report also explores different ways in which people are paying for news, the growing importance of video content, and brings unique data about the role played by different social networks for news in our participating countries.

But there are many other fascinating insights that have emerged from this year’s survey of almost 19,000 people in ten countries. We have included Finland this year – in addition to the US, UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Brazil, and Japan that provided the basis for last year’s survey. We’ve asked more questions and have increased sample sizes in most countries.

Once again we combined these data with a series of essays, which add depth and context to the findings, and these have been strengthened by continuing academic partnerships with the Hans Bredow Institute in Hamburg, the School of Journalism at the Institute of Political Science in Paris, and Roskilde University in Denmark – and new for 2014 with the School of Communication at the University of Navarra in Spain.

Many of our academic partners are also organising events or country reports looking in more detail at national themes – and adding wider value to this international project.

We continue to make efforts to open up as much of the data as possible via our website at www.digitalnewsreport.org. This contains slidepacks, charts, and raw data tables, along with a licence that encourages reuse. Also this year, we have developed a number of interactive features including a country-comparison application. We hope that this will continue to build into an invaluable resource for academics, journalists and those developing media policy to explain the past as well as the future. A description of the methodology is available on the website along with the complete questionnaire.

Making all this possible, we are hugely grateful to our sponsors this year, who include Google, BBC, Ofcom, France Télévisions, the Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland, Newsworks, Edelman UK, as well as our academic sponsors and partners at Roskilde University, the Hans Bredow Institute, and the University of Navarra. However sole responsibility for the analysis, interpretation, and conclusions drawn lies with the authors and editors of the Report.

I am also grateful to YouGov, our polling company, who did everything possible to accommodate our complex requirements and helped our research team analyse and contextualise the data and to Christian Arvidsson of Edelman for design and layout of this year’s report.