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Digital News Report 2019
Top Insights

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2019), 153 pp.

"Despite the efforts of the news industry, we find only a small increase in the numbers paying for any online news – whether by subscription, membership, or donation. Growth is limited to a handful of countries mainly in the Nordic region (Norway 34%, Sweden 27%) while the number paying in the US ... (16%) remains stable after a big jump in 2017. • Even in countries with higher levels of payment, the vast majority only have ONE online subscription – suggesting that ‘winner takes all’ dynamics are likely to be important. One encouraging development though is that most payments are now ‘ongoing’, rather than one-offs. In some countries, subscription fatigue may also be setting in, with the majority preferring to spend their limited budget on entertainment (Netflix/Spotify) rather than news. With many seeing news as a ‘chore’, publishers may struggle to substantially increase the market for high-priced ‘single title’ subscriptions. As more publishers launch pay models, over two-thirds (70%) of our sample in Norway and half (50%) in the United States now come across one or more barriers each week when trying to read online news. In many countries, people are spending less time with Facebook and more time with WhatsApp and Instagram than this time last year. Few users are abandoning Facebook entirely, though, and it remains by far the most important social network for news. Social communication around news is becoming more private as messaging apps continue to grow everywhere. WhatsApp has become a primary network for discussing and sharing news in non-Western countries like Brazil (53%) Malaysia (50%), and South Africa (49%). People in these countries are also far more likely than in the West to be part of large WhatsApp groups with people they don’t know – a trend that reflects how messaging applications can be used to easily share information at scale, potentially encouraging the spread of misinformation. Public and private Facebook Groups discussing news and politics have become popular in Turkey (29%) and Brazil (22%) but are much less used in Western countries such as Canada (7%) or Australia (7%). Concern about misinformation and disinformation remains high despite efforts by platforms and publishers to build public confidence. In Brazil 85% agree with a statement that they are worried about what is real and fake on the internet." (Summary, page 9) more

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Online Audience Engagement with Legacy and Digital-Born News Media in the 2019 Indian Elections

Silvia Majó-Vázquez, Subhayan Mukerjee, Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2019), 16 pp.

"In this factsheet, we study online audience engagement with legacy and digital-born news media across social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) and the open web during the 2019 Indian General Election on the basis of data collected between 11 April and 19 May. We analyse cross-platform online a ... more

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Measuring the Reach of 'Fake News' and Online Disinformation in Europe

Richard Fletcher, Alessio Cornia, Lucas Graves, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2018), 10 pp.

"The purpose of this RISJ factsheet is to provide toplevel usage statistics for the most popular sites that independent fact-checkers and other observers have identified as publishers of false news and online disinformation in two European countries: France and Italy. We focus specifically on sites ... that independent fact-checkers have shown to publish demonstrably false news and information, whether for profit or for ideological/political purposes. This constitutes a more clearly defined subset of a wider range of issues sometimes discussed using the broad, vague, and politicized term “fake news”. We examine France and Italy as two particularly important cases, as both are widely seen as facing serious issues with forprofit and ideologically/politically motivated online disinformation. Based on a starting sample of around 300 websites in each country that independent fact-checkers have identified as publishers of false news (which, on this basis, we refer to as “false news sites”), we focus on measuring these sites’ reach, attention, and number of interactions on Facebook. We provide context by comparing these figures with equivalent data for a small selection of the most widely-used French and Italian news brands. We find that: • None of the false news websites we considered had an average monthly reach of over 3.5% in 2017, with most reaching less than 1% of the online population in both France and Italy. By comparison, the most popular news websites in France (Le Figaro) and Italy (La Repubblica) had an average monthly reach of 22.3% and 50.9%, respectively; • The total time spent with false news websites each month is lower than the time spent with news websites. The most popular false news websites in France were viewed for around 10 million minutes per month, and for 7.5 million minutes in Italy. People spent an average of 178 million minutes per month with Le Monde, and 443 million minutes with La Repubblica—more than the combined time spent with all 20 false news sites in each sample; • Despite clear differences in terms of website access, the level of Facebook interaction (defined as the total number of comments, shares, and reactions) generated by a small number of false news outlets matched or exceeded that produced by the most popular news brands. In France, one false news outlet generated an average of over 11 million interactions per month—five times greater than more established news brands. However, in most cases, in both France and Italy, false news outlets do not generate as many interactions as established news brands." (Pages 1-2) more

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Digital News Report 2018

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, David A. L. Levy, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2018), 143 pp.

"The use of social media for news has started to fall in a number of key markets after years of continuous growth. Usage is down six percentage points in the United States, and is also down in the UK and France. Almost all of this is due to a specific decline in the discovery, posting, and sharing o ... more

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Indian News Media and the Production of News in the Age of Social Discovery

Zeenab Aneez, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Vibodh Parthasarathi, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2017), 29 pp.

"This report examines the social media strategies of a sample of six leading English-language Indian news organisations, two newspapers (Hindustan Times and The Indian Express), two television stations (NDTV and News18), and two digital-born organisations (Firstpost and The Quint). The context is ex ... more

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Digital News Report 2017

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, David A. L. Levy, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2017), 133 pp.

"The report is based on a survey of more than 70,000 people in 36 markets, along with additional qualitative research, which together make it the most comprehensive ongoing comparative study of news consumption in the world. A key focus remains in Europe where we have added Slovakia, Croatia, and Ro ... more

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In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy
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Anya Schiffrin (ed.)

Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) (2017), 162 pp.

"In this volume of essays edited by Anya Schiffrin, media capture is shown to be a growing phenomenon linked both to the resurgence of authoritarian governments as well as to the structural weaknesses presently afflicting media markets. In this environment, political figures and economic elites are ... more

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Public Support for the Media: A Six-Country Overview of Direct and Indirect Subsidies

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Geert Linnebank

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2016), 36 pp.

"This report reviews similarities and differences in public sector support for the media across a sample of six developed democracies – Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States – that represent a wide range of different media systems and different approaches to ... more

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Challenges and Opportunities for News Media and Journalism in an Increasingly Digital, Mobile, and Social Media Environment

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Alessio Cornia, Antonis Kalogeropoulos

Council of Europe;Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2016), 39 pp.

"This report reviews challenges and opportunities for news media and journalism in today’s changing media environment. It documents that we are moving towards an increasingly digital, mobile, and social media environment with more intense competition for attention. More and more people get news vi ... more

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Editorial Analytics: How News Media Are Developing and Using Audience Data and Metrics

Federica Cherubini, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2016), 46 pp.

"In this Reuters Institute Report, we review how a range of different newsrooms across Europe and North America use analytics. On the basis of more than 30 interviews, we find the following: Leading digital news organisations are developing distinct forms of editorial analytics tailored to help them ... more

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Digital Journalism Start-ups in India

Arijit Sen, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2016), 48 pp.

"In this report, we analyse six examples of digital journalism start-ups developing new editorial priorities, distribution strategies, and funding models for an increasingly digital Indian media environment. After years of slow growth, internet use and digital advertising has grown very rapidly in I ... more

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Public Service News and Digital Media

Annika Sehl, Alessio Cornia, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2016), 42 pp.

"In this report, we examine how public service media in six european countries (Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom) are delivering news in an increasingly digital media environment. The analysis is based on interviews conducted between december 2015 and February 2016 [.. ... more

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Indian Newspapers’ Digital Transition: Dainik Jagran, Hindustan Times, and Malayala Manorama

Zeenab Aneez, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Vibodh Parthasarathi, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism;Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) (2016), 47 pp.

"In this report, we have analysed how the Hindustan Times, Dainik Jagran, and Malayala Manorama are changing their newsroom organisation and journalistic work to adapt to an increasingly digital media environment. Our analysis shows that all three newspapers are investing in expanding their digital ... more

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Digital News Report 2016

Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, David A. L. Levy, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2016), 109 pp.

"This year we have evidence of the growth of distributed (offsite) news consumption, a sharpening move to mobile and we can reveal the full extent of ad-blocking worldwide. These three trends in combination are putting further severe pressure on the business models of both traditional publishers and ... more

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Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture

Benjamin Peters (ed.)

Princeton, NJ; Oxford: Princeton University Press (2016), xlv, 303 pp.

"Inspired by Raymond Williams's 1976 classic 'Keywords', the timely collection Digital Keywords gathers pointed, provocative short essays on more than two dozen keywords by leading and rising digital media scholars from the areas of anthropology, digital humanities, history, political science, philo ... more

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Digital News Report 2015

Nic Newman, David A. L. Levy, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.)

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2015), 109 pp.

"We see the smartphone more clearly as the defining device for digital news with a disruptive impact on consumption, formats, and business models. Our data suggest it provides an environment dominated by a few successful brands, with others struggling to reach a wider audience, both via apps and bro ... more

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Ten Years That Shook the Media World: Big Questions and Big Trends in International Media Developments

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2012), 73 pp.

This report documents some very significant differences in how media companies in different countries have fared over the last decade, examining six affluent democracies (Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as two emerging economies (Brazil and India).

Digital News Report 2019 Top Insights

In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy Top Insights

Digital News Report 2019
Top Insights

In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy
Top Insights