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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Trends: Demographics and Political Views of News Audiences

Pew Research Center
U.S. Politics & Policy









IN CHANGING NEWS LANDSCAPE, EVEN TELEVISION IS VULNERABLE

Section 4: Demographics and Political Views of News Audiences

In general, the regular audiences for most television and print news outlets tend to be older than the public as a whole. Yet there are some notable exceptions. As was the case two years ago, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show have the youngest audiences of the 24 news sources tested: 43% of Colbert’s regular audience is younger than 30, as is 39% of the Daily Show’s regular viewers. Just 23% of the public is 18-to-29.
Regular readers of the New York Times also tend to be younger than average. Nearly a third (32%) of regular Times readers – are younger than 30.
In contrast, political talk shows, particularly conservative talk programs, have older audiences. Large majorities of the regular viewers of Sean Hannity (66%) and The O’ Reilly Factor (64%) are 50 and older. Just 43% of all Americans are 50 and older. And while just 17% of the public is 65 and older, 42% of regular Hannity viewers and 40% of regular O’Reilly viewers are in that age category.
Liberal talk show audiences also skew older, but not as dramatically. Still, among regular Hardball watchers, 59% are 50 or older, and 28% are at least 65. Among regular Rachel Maddow viewers, 57% are 50 or older and 25% are at least 65.
Men dominate the regular audiences of the financial publications included in the survey: 73% of the regular readers of the Economist and Bloomberg Businessweek are men as are 71% of regular Wall Street Journal readers.
Men also comprise smaller majorities of the regular audiences for several other news outlets, including Rush Limbaugh listeners (59%), viewers of Colbert (58%) and the Daily Show (56%), as well as regular viewers of Hannity (57%) and O’Reilly (56%).
In contrast, women make up nearly three-quarters (73%) of the regular audience for daytime talk shows, such as The View or the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
The regular viewers of MSNBC also are mostly women (62%). By comparison, the regular audiences for both CNN and Fox News are more evenly divided between women and men.
Many regular news audiences have more education than the general public. And in general, regular readers of newspapers and magazines are more educated than the audiences of television shows or networks.
Nearly two-thirds (64%) of the regular readers of magazines such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic and Harpers are college graduates, as are 63% of readers of the Economist and Bloomberg Businessweek. More than half of the regular readers of the Wall Street Journal (56%), New York Times (56%) and news magazines (53%) also are college graduates. NPR’s audience also is relatively well educated (54% are college graduates). Just 29% of all Americans are college graduates.
By comparison, 29% of CNN’s regular audience, 26% of MSNBC’s audience and 24% of Fox News’s regular audience completed college.
Regular viewers of daytime talk shows are less educated than the public as a whole. Among this group, just 19% have four year degrees, 26% have attended some college and 54% have a high school diploma or less education.
There is a similar pattern when it comes to the family incomes of regular news audiences. At least four-in-ten regular readers of magazines such as the Economist (46%) or the New Yorker (41%), as well as regular NPR listeners (43%), have family incomes of $75,000 or more. Among the public, just 26% have family incomes of $75,000 or more.
Other high earners include readers of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times—38% of each group has a family income of at least $75,000—and Daily Show and Maddow viewers (37% each).
The income distribution of many audiences comes close to matching that of the general public, including audiences of show such as the O’Reilly Factor and Hardball, USA Today and network evening news. The income profiles of all three major cable news network audiences also closely track the general public.
Daytime talk show watchers stand out as the least well off regular audience. About half (51%) have family incomes of less than $30,000, while three-in-ten have $30,000-$74,999 incomes. Just 12% have incomes of $75,000 or more.

News Audiences’ Political Views

Since 2010, there has been little change in the ideological views or partisan leanings of news audiences. The regular audiences for Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly continue to be dominated by conservatives: About seven-in-ten or more of each of these audiences describe their political views as conservative, compared with 35% of the general public. And while Republicans comprise just 24% of the public, they make up half or more of the regular audiences of these three news outlets.
On the other hand, the regular viewers of Rachel Maddow are mostly liberal (57%); this is the only news audience tested in which liberals make up a majority. Just 22% of Americans are liberals. Liberals also make up 48% of regular viewers of Hardball, 43% of Daily Show viewers and 40% of Colbert viewers.
Majorities of the Maddow (74%) and Hardball audiences (65%) are Democrats, as are more than half of regular MSNBC viewers (58%) and regular readers of the New Yorker and similar magazines (57%). Among the public, just 32% are Democrats.
Yet the regular audiences for a number of news sources differ only modestly from the public ideologically or politically. Many of the most popular news sources—network evening news, daily newspapers and morning news, for example—have audiences whose partisan and ideological breakdowns are fairly similar to the public’s. This also is the case for the regular audiences for Sunday morning news shows, business magazines, and both USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.

Attitudes about the News

A majority of Americans (55%) say they trust a few news sources more than others; fewer (42%) say the news media “are pretty much the same.” These opinions have changed very little since 2004. For the most part, regular news audiences are more likely than the public to say they trust a few news sources more than others.
Fully eight-in-ten readers of magazines such as the New Yorker, Atlantic and Harpers, and Hannity, Maddow and O’Reilly viewers say there are a few sources they trust more than others. By contrast, just half of regular viewers of daytime talk shows trust some news sources more than others; nearly as many (45%) say the media are pretty much the same.
A majority of the public (64%) also continues to prefer to get political news from sources that have no particular political point of view; just 26% prefer news from sources that share their political views. Majorities of most news audiences say they want news with no political point of view, including seven-in-ten or more Colbert and Daily Show viewers, Economist readers, NPR listeners and readers of the New Yorker and similar magazines.
However, only about four-in-ten viewers of Hardball (37%), Hannity (41%), Maddow (43%) and listeners of Limbaugh (44%) say they prefer to get news from sources that don’t have a particular political point of view.

Political Knowledge

The public was asked four questions to measure knowledge of political news and current events. The questions concern which party controls the House of Representatives, the currentunemployment rate, the nation that Angela Merkel leads and which presidential candidate favors taxing higher-income Americans. Overall, just 14% of the public got all four questions right. Slightly more people (17%) got all four wrong. Most news audiences, however, scored substantially better than the public.
Almost four-in-ten of Rachel Maddow’s audience (38%) answered the four questions correctly, as did 36% of readers of magazines such as the New Yorker and 34% of Wall Street Journal readers. Audiences for several other news outlets, including NPR (33% all four correct), the Daily Show (32%), Hardball (32%) and the New York Times (31%) fared nearly as well.
The daytime talk show audience fared poorly on the knowledge questions, with just 4% answering all four correctly. Among this group, 18% answered none of the questions correctly.
Slightly more than half the public (54%) knew that the Republican Party controls the House of Representatives. The percentage is down substantially from 2010, when 70% knew the Democrats controlled the House. This decline is reflected across most news audiences.
About half the public (52%) also knew that the national unemployment rate is about 8%. Almost all regular audiences were at least as likely as the general public to get this question right.
Just 22% of the public identified Germany as the country that Angela Merkel leads. Many audiences fared somewhat better on this question than the public as a whole, but most regular readers, viewers and listeners did not know this or offered no response.
Two-thirds of the public knew that Barack Obama—not Mitt Romney—is more supportive of increasing taxes on higher-income people. Majorities of all news audiences answered this question correctly.

Trends: News Attitudes and Habits




Pew Research Center
U.S. Politics & Policy








IN CHANGING NEWS LANDSCAPE, EVEN TELEVISION IS VULNERABLE

Section 3: News Attitudes and Habits


Most Americans continue to say they enjoy following the news. But the percentage saying they enjoy it “a lot,” while little changed since 2010, is significantly lower today than it was four years ago. Currently, 43% say they enjoy following the news a lot. That compares with 45% two years ago and 52% in 2008, 2006 and 2004.
Since 2008, there have been steep declines in the percentages of young people and liberal Democrats who say they enjoy following the news a lot.
Currently, just 24% of those younger than 30 say they enjoy following the news a lot, down 14 points from 2008. There has been less change among older age groups, who continue to be more likely to say they enjoy following the news a lot.
Far fewer liberal Democrats get a great deal of enjoyment from following the news than did so four years ago, during the previous presidential campaign. Just 45% of liberal Democrats say they enjoy following the news a lot; that is unchanged since 2010, but down sharply from 67% in 2008.
Half of conservative Republicans say they enjoy keeping up with the news a lot. That is down from 57% in 2010 and 56% in 2008. There has also been a decline in enjoyment of the news among independents, from 45% in 2008 and 43% in 2010, to 38% now.
As previous news consumption surveys have found, people who enjoy following the news tend to get more news from a variety of sources. Fully 71% of those who enjoy following the news a lot watched television news yesterday, compared with just 41% of those who get less enjoyment from keeping up. And newspaper reading is much higher among those who enjoy keeping up with the news a lot than among those who do not (44% vs. 17%).
People who enjoy following the news a lot also are more likely than those who enjoy it less to get news online (45% vs. 31%). But the difference is smaller in getting news from cell phones and other mobile devices. And those who get only some or little enjoyment from following the news are about as likely as those who enjoy it a lot to get news from social networks (20% vs. 24%).
About a quarter (26%) of those who get only some or little enjoyment from following the news did not get any news yesterday. That compares with just 5% of those who enjoy following the news a lot.

Most “Graze” for News

The availability of online and digital news has increased the ability of Americans to get news when they want. In 2010, those who check in on news from time to time, as opposed to getting it at regular times, became a clear majority. That remains the case today: 57% describe themselves as the type of person who checks in on the news from time to time compared to 37% who get news at regular times.
These news habits vary by age group. Nearly eight-in ten (79%) of those 18 to 29 graze the news during the day. Among those 30 to 49, 64% say their preference is to check in
for news from time to time, a proportion that drops to 44% for those 50 to 64 and 33% for those 65 and older.
People who get news from TV or newspapers are more likely than those who get news from digital news platforms to get news at regular times. Nearly six-in-ten (57%) of those who read a newspaper yesterday and 49% of those who watched TV news say they get news at regular times. That compares with only about a third (35%) of those who got news online or digitally yesterday and 31% of those who saw news or news headlines on social networks.

Weather News Remains Top Draw

Despite major changes in the way Americans get news, the topics that interest people have changed very little over time. Weather continues to be the most popular news topic: 52% say they follow weather news very closely. No other type of news comes close.
About a quarter say they very closely track news about crime (28%), people and events in their community (26%) and sports (26%). Other topics, including news about political figures and events in Washington (17%) and news about international affairs (14%) are less popular.
There are age differences in interest in news about number of subjects, particularly political figures and events in Washington: Just 5% of those younger than 30 follow this news very closely, the lowest of any age group. And only 43% of young people follow Washington news very or fairly closely; 57% say they follow it not too closely or not at all closely. Majorities in older age groups follow Washington news at least fairly closely.

Interest in Local, National, International News

Majorities say they follow local (57%) and national news (54%) most of the time, whether or not something important is happening. But that is not the case when it comes to international news. Only about four-in-ten (39%) follow overseas news most of the time, compared with 56% who follow it only when something important is happening.
These views have changed little in recent years. But in 2004, 52% said they followed international news most of the time, whether or not something important was happening. That fell to 39% in 2006 and remained at that level in 2008 and in the current survey.
A Pew Research Center report in June found that news interest in individual foreign news stories to that point in 2012 had been lower than in 2011, when the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the “Arab spring” and the killing of Osama bin Laden occurred. (See“Interest in Foreign News Declines,” June 6, 2012.)
Notably, there are large educational differences in the numbers following national news most of the time, but not international news. College graduates (69%) are far more likely than those with some college experience (53%) or those with a high school education or less (44%) to say they follow national news most of the time, regardless of whether something important is happening. But comparable percentages of all three groups say they follow international news most of the time (43% of college graduates, 40% of those with some college, 37% of those with no more than a high school education).

Most Want News with No Point of View

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of the public say they prefer getting political news from sources that don’t have a particular point of view, compared with 26% who would rather get news from sources that share their political perspective. This is on par with opinions since 2006.
There continue to be sizable educational differences in opinions about political news with a point of view: 75% of college graduates, and 69% of those with some college experience say they prefer political news with no point of view. That compares with 53% of those with no more than a high school education.
Majorities across the political spectrum say they would rather get news with no particular point of view. Conservative Republicans are significantly more likely to express this view than they were in 2010 (58% now, 48% then). There have been more modest changes in the views of other political groups.
Most Americans also continue to reject the idea that the news media are all pretty much the same. More than half (55%) say there are few news sources they trust more than others; 42% say the news media are pretty much the same.
As in previous surveys, conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats are more likely than moderates and independents to say that there are a few news sources they trust more than others. About seven-in-ten conservative Republicans (73%) and liberal Democrats (70%) express this view, compared with about half of independents (52%), moderate and liberal Republicans (51%) and conservative and moderate Democrats (49%).

Trends: Online and Digital News



Pew Research Center
U.S. Politics & Policy







IN CHANGING NEWS LANDSCAPE, EVEN TELEVISION IS VULNERABLE

Section 2: Online and Digital News

The percentage of Americans getting news from online and digital sources continues to grow, and that trend has been sustained in the last two years by an increase in the use of mobile devices.
The share saying they got news online yesterday is unchanged since 2010, at 34%. However, when those who get news from cell phones, tablets and other mobile devices are added, that figure grows to 39%. (The 2010 survey asked only about news online.)
The explosive growth of social networking sites has been another contributor to the online search for news, with the percentage saying they saw news or news headlines on social networking sites the previous day increasing from 9% in 2010 to 19%.
Many of the same trends also are evident in where people regularly get news. The percentage of Americans who regularly go online for news – those who get news online three days a week or more – has not increased. In the new survey, 46% say they get news online at least three days a week, which is unchanged since 2010.
However, the percentage who regularly get news on a cell phone, tablet or other mobile device has nearly doubled since 2010, from 9% to 15%, and the number regularly seeing news on social network sites has almost tripled, from 7% to 20%.
In the shifting online landscape, the use of mobile devices and social networking sites have replaced a traditional tool — search engines — as the driver of growth in finding news online. Search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo continue to be the largest single tool in finding news online, but the substantial growth in their use between 2008 and 2010 has leveled off.
Other online platforms have had less impact than social networking sites. Just more than one-in-ten (12%) regularly get news from reading blogs, a figure that has changed little since 2008. About the same percentage (13%) regularly gets news by email. Just 5% say they regularly get news by listening to podcasts. And just 3% of the general public regularly follows news on Twitter.

Regular Online News Consumption

About half (46%) of the public says they get news online three days a week or more, with about a third (32%) going online for news every day. Neither figure has changed much since 2010; in 2008, 37% said they went online for news at least three days a week and 25% got news online daily.
There continue to be sizable age and educational differences in online news use. Nearly two-thirds of college graduates (65%) regularly get news online, compared with just 28% of those with no more than a high school education.
Only about one-in-five (22%) of those 65 and older get online news regularly, by far the lowest percentage of any age group.

Online News Sources

There has been little change since 2010 in the websites people go to most for news and information. Yahoo, mentioned by 26% of online news users, is the top destination, as it was two years ago, while 17% name Google or Google News, 14% CNN, 13% local news sources and 11% MSN.
About one-in-ten online news users (9%) cite Fox as their top news destination. Nearly one-in-five Republicans (18%) name Fox as their top online news source, compared with 4% of Democrats and 8% of independents. By contrast, there are only slight partisan differences among those who mention MSNBC as the online source they use most often for news and information.

News Online, Mobile, Social Networks

In the current survey, 46% say they get news at least three days a week online or on a cell phone or mobile device; that is unchanged from 2010, when the question only asked about getting news online.
However, an increasing percentage says they get news on a cell phone, tablet or other mobile device. Currently, 15% say they regularly get news on one or more of these devices, up from 9% in 2010. In part, this is being driven by the increased internet availability on mobile devices. Two years ago, only about a third of the public (31%) said they accessed the internet on their cell phones. But today, more than half (55%) say they access the internet on a cell phone, tablet or another mobile device.
The percentage regularly getting news from a social networking site, such as Facebook, Google Plus or LinkedIn, also has increased dramatically – from just 2% in 2008, to 7% in 2010 and 20% currently.
These trends are complementary: Those who have smartphones – about half of the public (48%) – are far more likely to regularly see news or news headlines on social networking sites than those who do not (29% vs. 11%). Similarly, those who have iPads, Kindle Fires and other tablet computers (21% of the public) also are much more likely to get news from social networks than are those who do not own these devices.

More Get News from Mobile Devices

An increasing proportion of Americans say they regularly get news on a cell phone, tablet or other mobile device. But this growth has been driven mostly by the greater availability of mobile internet access. Mobile internet users themselves are no more likely to regularly get news on these devices than they were two years ago.
Among the public, 15% regularly get news on a cell phone or another mobile handheld device, up from 9% two years ago. About three-in-ten (28%) mobile internet users say they regularly get news from one of these devices, which is virtually unchanged from 2010 (27%).
People younger than 50 are far more likely than older Americans to regularly get news on a mobile device. This primarily reflects the huge disparity in mobile internet access among younger and older Americans: 75% of those younger than 50 say they access the internet on cell phone, tablet or other mobile device. That compares with just 30% of those 50 and older. (For more on increased mobile internet use, see “A Majority of Adult Cell Owners [55%] Now Go Online Using their Cell Phones,” June 26, 2012, Pew Internet & American Life Project.)

Mobile News Apps Also Increase

As news consumption on cell phones and other mobile devices has increased, so has the use of news apps, which allow people to access news and news headlines on their mobile devices. In the current survey, a quarter of all Americans, including 45% of mobile internet users, say they have ever downloaded a news app to their cell phone, tablet, or another mobile device. In 2010, 16% of the public, and only 20% of mobile internet users, said they had ever downloaded a news app.
Those who have downloaded news apps tend to be young, well-educated and wealthy. More than four-in-ten (43%) of those with family incomes of $100,000 a year have ever downloaded a mobile news app; that compares with just 19% of those with incomes of $30,000 a year or less. Even among mobile internet users, there are sizable income differences: Fully 60% of mobile internet users with incomes of at least $100,000 have downloaded a news app, compared with 40% of those with incomes of $30,000 or less.
Not surprisingly, those who have downloaded news apps are far more likely than other Americans to get news from digital sources. Fully 70% say they got news online or digitally yesterday. Yet they are not any less likely than others to get news from traditional sources.
More than half (54%) of those who have downloaded news apps say they watched television news yesterday and 39% listened to radio news. Among all adults, 55% watched TV news and 33% listened to radio news. Comparable percentages of the public (29%) and those who have downloaded mobile news apps (30%) say they read a newspaper yesterday, but news app users are more likely to read the paper digitally and less likely to read a print version.

News on Social Networking Sites

The use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Google Plus or LinkedIn to get news and headlines owes in part to the substantial increase in use of social media in general by Americans. About four-in-ten (41%) of all adults say they had used a social networking site on the previous day, up from 30% in 2010, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Yet those who go on social networking sites also are far more likely to see news on these sites. Overall, the percentage of all Americans who regularly get news from social network sites has roughly tripled – from 7% to 20% – since 2010. And the proportion of social networkers who regularly get news there has more than doubled, from 16% to 36%).
Young people, who use social network sites at much higher rates than do older adults, increasingly use Facebook and other social network sites to get news. About a third or more of those ages 18 to 39 regularly see news or news headlines on social networking sites. Two years ago, fewer than one-in-five in younger age groups said they regularly got news on social networking sites.

Twitter for News

Far more Americans go on social networking sites than Twitter. Just 13% of adults say they ever use Twitter or read Twitter messages. And Twitter users are less likely to get news from the site than are social network users.
Among the public, Twitter barely registers as a news source. Just 3% say they regularly get news on Twitter, while 4% sometimes get news there. Nonetheless, the percentage of Twitter users who get news on the site is growing. In the new survey, 27% say they get news regularly on Twitter while another 28% say they sometimes do this. In 2010, only 17% said they regularly got news on Twitter, while 15% said they sometimes got news on Twitter.
As is the case with social networks users, more Twitter users follow news on the site than use it to share news. About one-in-ten Twitter users (9%) regularly tweet or re-tweet news headlines; a similar percentage of social network users (10%) shares news on social network sites.
Twitter users appear to be more closely connected to professional journalists and news organizations than their social networking counterparts when it comes to relying on them for online news. More than a third (36%) of those with Twitter accounts use them to follow news organizations or journalists. On social networking sites, 19% of users say they got information there from news organizations or journalists.
For the most part, those who see political news on Twitter and social network sites prefer sources with no particular point of view. About half of those who get news on Twitter (52%), and 56% of those who get news on social networks, say they prefer news sources that do not have a particular point of view. Just 26% of Twitter news users and 25% of those who get news from social networks would rather that these sources share their political point of view.
In this regard, the views of Twitter and social network users are similar to those of the general public. Most Americans (64%) say they would prefer to get news from sources that do not have a particular point of view, while 26% prefer news from sources that share their political view. (For the views of regular news audiences on this question, see Section 4: Demographics and Political Views of News Audiences.)

Getting News from Email

There has been no growth in the past two years in the percentage of Americans that gets or shares news by email. Currently, 13% say they regularly get news by email, while 14% say they sometimes do this. In 2010, 27% said they also regularly (12%) or sometimes (15%) got new or news headlines by email.
Only 4% say they regularly use email to send news or news headlines; 11% say they sometimes do this. This also is little changed from 2010, when 3% regularly sent news stories by email and 11% said they sometimes did this.
About one-in-ten Americans (12%) say they get news directly from news organizations by email. This figure also has shown little change since 2010 (10%).

Searching for News Online

After a sharp increase from 2004 to 2010, the use of search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing to find news has leveled off. After growing from 11% to 33% between 2004 and 2010, the number of adults who use search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo to search for news three or more days a week has steadied at 33%.
The same leveling-off of search engines also has occurred among regular online news users. Just over four-in-ten (42%) say they used search engines to find news three times a week or more. Prior to that, the number of online news users who frequently turned to search engines had jumped from 19% in 2004 to 44% in 2010.
There are few demographic differences when it comes to search engine use. As with other online news activity, older Americans and those with high school educations or less use search engines somewhat less than do younger people and college graduates.

Reading Political Blogs

Slightly more than one-in-ten (12%) of all Americans regularly read blogs about politics or current events and another 21% say they read them sometimes. Just less than half (45%) never read blogs or do not use the internet. The numbers of those who read blogs regularly are little changed since 2008.
There is little partisan difference when it comes to blog-reading: 14% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats and 10% of independents say they read blogs about politics and current events.
Among age groups, regular blog reading is lowest among those 18 to 24 (6%) and highest among those 40 to 49 (17%). There is little difference in blog reading among the age groups in between. Looked at by education level, 15% of college graduates and those who have had some college regularly read blogs, a number that falls to 7% for those with high school or less.