A closer look at the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022

What is the News?

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has released the Digital News Report, 2022.

What are the key findings of the Digital News Report?

Firstly, people are trusting news content less and less. 

Secondly, consumption of traditional news media declined in nearly all the countries surveyed. 

Thirdly, the proportion of news consumers who say that they “avoid news” has risen sharply across countries with the report describing the phenomenon as “selective avoidance”. 

Fourthly, despite small increases in the proportion of people willing to pay for online news (mostly in richer countries), the growth in digital subscriptions for news content seems to be levelling off. 

Fifthly, smartphones have become the dominant way in which most people first access news in the morning. 

Lastly, Facebook remained the most-used social network for news. But it is TikTok that has become the fastest-growing network. However, TikTok is currently banned in India.

What does the report say about India?

India is a strongly mobile-focused market. 72% of the survey respondents accessed news through smartphones and 35% did so via computers.

Around 84% of the Indian respondents sourced news online, 63% from social media, 59% from television, and 49% from print. YouTube (53%) and WhatsApp (51%) were the top social media platforms for sourcing news.

India registered a small increase in the level of trust with 41% trusting news overall.

A minority of respondents – 36% and 35% – felt that legacy print brands and public broadcasters lacked undue political influence and business influence, respectively.

Source: The post is based on the article “A closer look at the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022” published in The Hindu on 14th June 2022.