According to the 2008 biennial news consumption survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, audiences for most traditional news sources have steadily declined, as the number of people getting news online has surged. However, today it is not a choice between traditional sources and the Internet for the core elements of today's news audiences, notes the report, since a sizable minority of Americans find themselves at the intersection of these two long-standing trends in news consumption.
The study finds four distinct segments in today's news audience:
Integrators represent 23% of the public, and like web-oriented news consumers, Integrators are affluent and highly educated. However, they are older, on average, than those who consider the internet their main source of news. Overall, Integrators spend more time with the news on a typical day than do those who rely more on either traditional or internet sources.
Integrators also are heavier consumers of national news -- especially news about politics and Washington -- and are avid sports news consumers. Television is their main news source, but more than a third cite the internet as their primary source of news during the day. This reflects the fact that 45% of Integrators log on to the internet from work.
Nearly half of Integrators (46%) listen to news on the radio during a typical day. While the internet is the main news source for Integrators during the course of the day, about as many in this segment rely on radio news as TV news during the day (32% radio vs. 36% TV news).
Net-Newsers are the youngest of the news user segments (median age: 35). They are affluent and even better educated than the News Integrators:
More than four-in-ten Net-Newsers (43%) regularly watch cable news, far more than the proportion that regularly watches network or local news.
Traditionalists remain the largest segment of the overall news audience. Compared with the Integrators and Net-Newsers, Traditionalists are downscale economically:
Television dominates as the favored news source among Traditionalists. And at each time of the day -- whether morning, daytime, dinner hour, or late at night -- overwhelming majorities who get news at these times cite television as their main source. Most Traditionalists say that seeing pictures and video, rather than reading or hearing the facts, gives them the best understanding of events.
The Disengaged are very much bystanders when it comes to news consumption. They are less educated on average than even the Traditionalists and exhibit extremely low interest in, and knowledge of, current events:
Other Key Findings in the Trends in News Consumption
Since the1990s, the proportion of Americans saying they read a newspaper on a typical day has declined by about 40%; the proportion that regularly watches nightly network news has fallen by half. Most of the loss in readership since 2006 has come among those who read the print newspaper. These trends have been more stable in recent years, but the percentage saying they read a newspaper yesterday has fallen from 40% to 34% in the last two years alone.
News Source Participation (% of survey participants) | ||||||||
| 1993 | 1996 | 1998 | 2000 | 2002 | 2004 | 2006 | 2008 |
Listened/Read yesterday | ||||||||
Newspaper | 58% | 59 | 48 | 47 | 41 | 42 | 40 | 34 |
Radio news | 47 | 44 | 49 | 43 | 41 | 40 | 36 | 35 |
Regularly watch | ||||||||
Cable TV news | - | - | - | - | 33 | 38 | 34 | 39 |
Local TV news | 77 | 65 | 64 | 56 | 57 | 59 | 54 | 52 |
Nightly network news | 60 | 42 | 38 | 30 | 32 | 34 | 28 | 29 |
Network morning news | - | - | 23 | 20 | 22 | 22 | 23 | 22 |
Online | ||||||||
Three of more days a week | - | 2 | 13 | 23 | 25 | 29 | 31 | 37 |
Source: PEW Research Center, August 2008 |
For more complete information, including charts and tables, please visit PewResearch here, or the Pew website here.