This year we have collected more detailed data on the level of interest people have in different news topics across countries and between demographics. Political news is considered most important in Germany, Turkey, and the United States, partly no doubt due to the ongoing presidential election and the drama around Donald Trump’s candidacy. International news is of particular interest in Germany and Austria as well as Ireland. Japanese are most interested in entertainment and celebrity news, with the Spanish, Danes, French, and Germans showing the least interest. Regional news is most important in Germany, Finland, and Spain, reflecting the relative importance of devolved political power in those countries and the media systems that have grown up around this.

But in addition to country-based differences we can see clear differences in gender, with men more interested in subjects like sport and politics and women paying more attention to stories about health and the environment. Again this plays into the debate over distributed content and may help explain why women are often less likely to directly access news websites dominated by politics and business.

Hard and Soft News

We can also divide consumers into groups based on their interest in ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ news topics. ‘Hard’ news is typically used to refer to topics that are usually timely, important and consequential, such as politics, international affairs and business news. Conversely, soft news topics include entertainment, celebrity, and lifestyle news.

We asked our survey respondents to rate their interest in several news topics on a five-point scale. We then used this data to compute average levels of interest in hard and soft news for each respondent. Subsequently we compared the scores for hard and soft news, and divided respondents into three groups; those who are more interested in hard news topics, those who are more interested in soft news, and those whose interest in both is the same.

TOPICS INCLUDED IN HARD NEWS AND SOFT NEWS MEASURES

On average, in every country we see that interest levels are higher for hard news topics. However, this is likely to be influenced by social desirability bias (the idea that it is more acceptable to interested in certain types of news) as well the norms of the traditional news agenda. At the individual level, people with a high degree of interest in hard news also tend to be the most interested in soft news, and vice versa.

Yet we still see a significant minority in every country that report they are more interested in soft news topics than hard news. The size of this group varies country by country. Around one-third in Japan (34%) and Korea (33%) say they are more interested in soft news. However, less than one in five say the same in most other countries. The preference for hard news is particularly strong in Greece (81%), Spain (77%), Denmark (77%), and Germany (76%).

If we focus on those that say they are more interested in soft news, we see that they are more likely to be young and female. In countries such as Japan and Italy, where interest in soft news is high, women are almost twice as likely as men to be more interested in soft news topics compared to hard.

In every country younger people are more likely to be more interested in soft news topics. Strikingly, over half of under-35s in Japan say they are more interested in soft news topics than hard news.

Of course, what people say they are interested in may not accurately reflect what they actually do. Nonetheless, we observe some differences in consumption among those that are more interested in soft news. Most noticeably, they are considerably more likely to say that social media is their main source of news. Over one in five of those more interested in soft news in Spain (21%), Italy (20%), and the United States (26%) say that social media are their main source of news. This has a knock-on effect for related aspects of offsite news consumption, with people who prefer soft news more likely to watch news video on social media, and more likely to participate in news coverage. However, this is in part caused by the fact that younger people in general are more likely to use social media for news.