Our work on brands shows that audiences consume the majority of their online news from familiar and trusted brands, but we can also see that they are using increasingly varied ways to find that content. In the process, Google, Facebook, and Twitter have become – to a greater or lesser extent – intermediaries for a large proportion of news journeys online. As a result, some publishers complain that they have been able to take a significant share of the available advertising revenue around news, thereby making the funding of trusted content more uncertain.
Our data show that brand is the primary gateway in Denmark, Finland, the UK, while search is most important in France, Germany, Italy, the US, and urban Brazil.
Top ways of finding news by country
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| UK | France | Germany | Denmark | Italy | Spain | Japan | Urban Brazil | USA | Finland | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directly via brand | 45% | 23% | 27% | 46% | 39% | 46% | 20% | 46% | 33% | 57% |
| Search engine | 29% | 40% | 42% | 15% | 59% | 35% | 41% | 59% | 40% | 26% |
| Social media | 17% | 14% | 15% | 16% | 34% | 38% | 12% | 46% | 28% | 24% |
| 9% | 24% | 12% | 16% | 12% | 12% | 18% | 22% | 27% | 11% | |
| News aggregator | 4% | 5% | 9% | 7% | 6% | 7% | 13% | 5% | 8% | 14% |
| Mobile phone alert | 3% | 6% | 4% | 7% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 10% | 6% | 5% |
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? (Please select all that apply)
Base: All markets 2014 – UK=2082, Germany=2063, Spain=2017, Italy=2010, France=1946, Denmark=2036, Finland=1520, US=2197, Urban Brazil=1015, Japan=1973
Within these averages there are significant differences between and within countries. In Finland and Denmark we see brand, followed by search and social, with younger groups preferring social and older groups preferring search. But in Germany and Italy we see a different pattern with search as the main gateway.
Top ways of finding news by country – Finland
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? (Please select all that apply) Base: Finland=1520, Denmark=2036, Germany=2063, Italy=2010
Top ways of finding news by country – Denmark
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? (Please select all that apply) Base: Finland=1520, Denmark=2036, Germany=2063, Italy=2010
Top ways of finding news by country – Germany
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? (Please select all that apply) Base: Finland=1520, Denmark=2036, Germany=2063, Italy=2010
Top ways of finding news by country – Italy
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? (Please select all that apply) Base: Finland=1520, Denmark=2036, Germany=2063, Italy=2010
But within the search category there are some important nuances. Our data allow us to break down different types of query and we find that on average more than half (56%) relate to navigation to a particular website. In countries with stronger brands such as Denmark and the UK the percentage tends to be even higher (62% and 60% respectively).
Search gateways in detail – all countries
Q10. Which were the ways in which you searched LAST WEEK? Showing codes 2 and 3 for different types of searches
Base: All = 18836
In terms of demographics, social media are far more important for younger groups with 18–24s more than twice as likely to find news that way (38% vs 17% for over 55s). Women are more likely to use social media sites like Facebook to discover news (22% vs 18% for men). By contrast, Twitter skews slightly male. Men are more likely to go straight to a news brand (as are News Lovers).
Top gateways to news by age, gender and news segment
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| 18-24 | 25-34 | 35-44 | 45-54 | 55+ | Male | Female | News lovers | Casual users | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search | 40% | 38% | 39% | 38% | 37% | 39% | 37% | 44% | 32% |
| Social | 38% | 31% | 24% | 20% | 17% | 21% | 25% | 27% | 22% |
| Brand | 35% | 38% | 39% | 38% | 37% | 42% | 33% | 46% | 24% |
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? (Please select all that apply)
Base: All = 18836
In comparing social media and email use between the UK and the United States, we can see that these gateways are almost twice as important in the US. In both countries, under 45s prefer social networks for sharing and discovering news while many over 45s are more comfortable with email.
Twitter is particularly favoured by younger groups and is proportionally more important in the UK than in the US where Facebook, Google+, YouTube combined are three times more popular.
Gateways compared: Social media vs Email) – UK
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? Showing social media and email options Base: UK=2082, USA=2197
Gateways compared: Social media vs Email) – USA
Q10. Which were the ways in which you came across news stories last week? Showing social media and email options Base: UK=2082, USA=2197