Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018 3 Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018 Nic Newman with Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, David A. L. Levy and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Supported by Surveyed by © Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Digital News Report 2018 4 Contents Foreword by David A. L. Levy 5 3.12 Hungary 84 Methodology 6 3.13 Ireland 86 Authorship and Research Acknowledgements 7 3.14 Italy 88 3.15 Netherlands 90 SECTION 1 3.16 Norway 92 Executive Summary and Key Findings by Nic Newman 8 3.17 Poland 94 3.18 Portugal 96 SECTION 2 3.19 Romania 98 Further Analysis and International Comparison 32 3.20 Slovakia 100 2.1 The Impact of Greater News Literacy 34 3.21 Spain 102 2.2 Misinformation and Disinformation Unpacked 38 3.22 Sweden 104 2.3 Which Brands do we Trust and Why? 42 3.23 Switzerland 106 2.4 Who Uses Alternative and Partisan News Brands? 45 3.24 Turkey 108 2.5 Donations & Crowdfunding: an Emerging Opportunity? 49 Americas 2.6 The Rise of Messaging Apps for News 52 3.25 United States 112 2.7 Podcasts and New Audio Strategies 55 3.26 Argentina 114 3.27 Brazil 116 SECTION 3 3.28 Canada 118 Analysis by Country 58 3.29 Chile 120 Europe 3.30 Mexico 122 3.01 United Kingdom 62 Asia Pacific 3.02 Austria 64 3.31 Australia 126 3.03 Belgium 66 3.32 Hong Kong 128 3.04 Bulgaria 68 3.33 Japan 130 3.05 Croatia 70 3.34 Malaysia 132 3.06 Czech Republic 72 3.35 Singapore 134 3.07 Denmark 74 3.36 South Korea 136 3.08 Finland 76 3.37 Taiwan 138 3.09 France 78 3.10 Germany 80 SECTION 4 3.11 Greece 82 Postscript and Further Reading 140 4 / 5 Foreword Dr David A. L. Levy Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) This is our seventh annual report that explores the changing This year we’ve looked in much more detail at the changing shape environment around news across countries. The report is based of social media and the increasing importance of messaging apps on a survey of more than 74,000 people in 37 markets, along with for news. We conducted a series of focus groups in four countries additional qualitative research, which together make it the most (United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Brazil) where comprehensive ongoing comparative study of news consumption we talked to users of Facebook and WhatsApp about how they in the world. Europe remains a key focus, where we cover 25 used these networks for news. This has brought out a rich set of countries including Bulgaria for the first time this year, but we insights about why people are often reluctant to share and post also cover six markets in Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong openly about contentious subjects and are increasingly choosing Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore) along with four Latin American safer, more private spaces. countries (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico) and the United States and Canada from North America. In terms of partnerships we continue to deepen our relationships across the world with a multiplicity of distinguished academic The report has expanded more than sevenfold since its creation, institutions. These have helped in a variety of different ways, from from five countries in 2012 to 37 in 2018, but it is not yet fully preparing country profiles to in-depth analysis of the results. global. Our use of online polling and the need to make meaningful Many of our partners are also organising events or country reports comparisons have meant we have focused on countries with looking in more detail at national themes – adding wider value to high internet penetration and which are either broadly this international project. democratic or generally compare themselves to countries with a democratic tradition. Inevitably this printed report can only convey a small part of the data that we’ve captured. More detail is available on our website This year’s report comes amid continuing concern about so-called (www.digitalnewsreport.org), which contains slidepacks, charts, ‘fake news’ and about the role of tech companies (platforms) in along with a licence that encourages reuse, subject to attribution facilitating the spread of misinformation. Investigations have to the Reuters Institute. All of the website charts have a feature been launched in many countries, whether about misinformation, which allows them to be used by – or be embedded in – any use of customer data to target political advertising, or the other website or blog. On the website, you can also find a full impact of the tech companies on the news industry. Against that description of our survey methodology, the full questionnaire, and background we’ve tried to understand more about audience an interactive charting feature, which allows data to be compared concerns about different kinds of information online, to provide across countries, and over time. Raw data tables are also available evidence about the state of the industry across our 37 countries on request along with documentation for reuse. as well as insights into the relationship between news publishers and their users. Making all this possible, we are hugely grateful to our sponsors: Google, the BBC, Ofcom, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, As with previous reports we’ve done this by triangulating survey the Dutch Media Authority (CvdM), the Media Industry Research data, focus groups and intelligence from expert contributors Foundation of Finland, the Fritt Ord Foundation in Norway, the across all of our countries. We have also introduced some new Korea Press Foundation, and Edelman UK, as well as our academic approaches, through looking at trust at the brand level and the use sponsors at the Hans Bredow Institute, the University of Navarra, of focus groups. As politicians and industry grapple for solutions the University of Canberra, the Centre d’études sur les médias, on how to balance freedom of expression and regulation in a Université Laval, Canada, and Roskilde University in Denmark. digital age we also bring further evidence about how audiences view these issues. We have explored news literacy for the first We are also grateful to YouGov, our polling company, who did time, developing a model that allows us to understand more about everything possible to accommodate our increasingly complex how this influences trust and the ability to spot misinformation. requirements and helped our research team analyse and contextualise the data. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Digital News Report 2018 6 REUTERS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JOURNALISM / EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Slide 2 Methodology This study has been commissioned by the Reuters Institute Final Total Internet Country for the Study of Journalism to understand how news is being sample size population penetration consumed in a range of countries. Research was conducted by Europe YouGov using an online questionnaire at the end of January/ UK 2117 66m 95% beginning of February 2018. Austria 2010 8.6m 85% • The data were weighted to targets based on census/industry Belgium 2006 11m 88% accepted data on age, gender, and region to represent the total population of each country. The sample is reflective Bulgaria 2021 7m 60% of the population that has access to the internet. Croatia 2010 4.2m 74% • As this survey deals with news consumption, we filtered out Czech Rep. 2020 11m 88% anyone who said that they had not consumed any news in the Denmark 2025 5.7m 97% past month, in order to ensure that irrelevant responses didn’t Finland 2012 5.5m 93% adversely affect data quality. This category was lower than 1% France 2006 65m 87% in Finland, averaged around 3%, but was as high as 8% in the Germany 2038 81m 90% United States. Greece 2014 11m 69% • A comprehensive online questionnaire1 was designed to Hungary 2005 9.8m 81% capture different aspects of news consumption. Italy 2040 60m 87% • Face-to-face focus groups were held in the US, UK, Germany, Ireland 2007 4.7m 94% and Brazil to explore issues relating to social media and messaging apps. These were conducted by Kantar Media. Netherlands 2010 17m 95% Norway Our survey was conducted using established online panels run by 2027 5.3m >99% our polling company YouGov and their partners. Because this is an Poland 2005 39m 73% online survey the results will under-represent the consumption Portugal 2008 10m 72% habits of people who are not online (typically older, less affluent, Romania 2048 19m 63% and with limited formal education). Where relevant, we have tried Slovakia 2006 5.4m 85% to make this clear within the text. The main purpose is to track Spain 2023 46m 87% the activities and changes over time within the digital space as well as gaining understanding about how offline media and online Sweden 2016 9.9m 93% media are used together. A fuller description of the methodology Switzerland 2120 8.5m 89% and a discussion of non-probability sampling techniques can be Turkey* 2019 80m 70% found on our website. Americas Along with country-based figures, throughout the report we also US 2401 327m 96% use aggregate figures based on responses from all respondents Argentina 2012 44m 79% across all the countries covered. These figures are meant only to Brazil* 2007 211m 66% indicate overall tendencies and should be treated with caution. Canada 2022 37m 90% In fourteen countries, respondents this year were only able to Chile 2008 18m 77% take the survey using a desktop or laptop computer.