Reuters Institute Digital Report

Overview

This year's report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 75,000 online news consumers in 38 countries including South Africa for the first time.

The report focuses on the progress on new paid online business models, trust and misinformation, the impact of populism, the shift to private messaging apps, and the rise of podcasts.

Key findings

Video summary in 3 minutes

Private messaging and groups

Private messaging apps and Facebook groups are becoming a more important way to share discuss news. WhatsApp is being used heavily for news in countries like Brazil (53%) and South Africa (49%), making these countries potentially more vulnerable to the spread of misinformation.

Paying for news

16% now pay for online news in the United States, 27% (+1pp) in Sweden and 34% (+4pp) in Norway but these countries remain the exception. More publishers are putting up paywalls but most consumers remain reluctant to pay

Impact of populism on media

Our report finds that the highest levels of populism are in Eastern and Southern Europe, but how is the phenomenon affecting media use?

More than a third of our combined sample (36%) say they have consumed at least one podcast over the last month but this rises to half (50%) for those under 35. The mobile phone is the most used device (55%) for podcast listening. We explore the demographics and motivations for use