REUTERS INSTITUTE DIGITAL NEWS REPORT2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 3 Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 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 2017 4 Contents Foreword by David A. L. Levy 5 4.11 Hungary 74 Methodology 6 4.12 Ireland 76 Authorship and Research Acknowledgements 7 4.13 Italy 78 4.14 Netherlands 80 SECTION 1 4.15 Norway 82 Executive Summary and Key Findings – Nic Newman 8 4.16 Poland 84 4.17 Portugal 86 SECTION 2 4.18 Romania 88 Viewpoint: We Broke the News – Melissa Bell, Vox Media 28 4.19 Slovakia 90 4.20 Spain 92 SECTION 3 4.21 Sweden 94 3.1 Paying for News 34 4.22 Switzerland 96 3.2 Polarisation in the News Media 38 4.23 Turkey 98 3.3 News Avoidance 41 Americas 3.4 Social Media and Incidental Exposure 43 4.24 United States 102 3.5 Participation and Online News 45 4.25 Argentina 104 3.6 Comparative Brand Analysis and New Countries 47 4.26 Brazil 106 4.27 Canada 108 SECTION 4 4.28 Chile 110 Analysis by Country 50 4.29 Mexico 112 Europe Asia Pacific 4.1 United Kingdom 54 4.30 Australia 116 4.2 Austria 56 4.31 Hong Kong 118 4.3 Belgium 58 4.32 Japan 120 4.4 Croatia 60 4.33 Malaysia 122 4.5 Czech Republic 62 4.34 Singapore 124 4.6 Denmark 64 4.35 South Korea 126 4.7 Finland 66 4.36 Taiwan 128 4.8 France 68 4.9 Germany 70 4.10 Greece 72 Postscript and Further Reading 130 4 5/ Foreword Dr David A. L. Levy Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) This is our sixth annual report that explores the changing For an industry perspective we’re delighted to include a viewpoint environment around news across countries. The report is based on journalism’s current dilemmas from Melissa Bell, co-founder on a survey of more than 70,000 people in 36 markets, along with of Vox Media. Vox has been at the sharp end of explaining the additional qualitative research, which together make it the most dramatic political events around the rise of Donald Trump. comprehensive ongoing comparative study of news consumption It is also actively exploring new business models. in the world. A key focus remains in Europe where we have added Slovakia, Croatia, and Romania for the first time – but we have In terms of partnerships we continue to deepen our relationships also added four markets in Asia (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, across the world with a multiplicity of distinguished academic and Singapore) along with three additional Latin American institutions. These have helped in a variety of different ways, countries (Argentina, Chile, and Mexico). from preparing country profiles to in-depth analysis of the results. Many of our partners are also organising events or country reports This year’s report comes against the backdrop of continuing looking in more detail at national themes – adding wider value concerns about how to fund journalism and the relations between to this international project. In the final quarter of 2017 we will news organisations and platforms, but also an intensification in be producing an Asia Pacific Regional Report with our partners news about the news, driven by attacks on the US media and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. widespread concern about ‘fake news’. We look at issues of truth and falsehood and trust in this year’s report, where we continue We continue to make efforts to open up the data as much to see big differences between countries and regions. as possible via our website (www.digitalnewsreport.org). This contains slidepacks and charts, along with a licence that We have data on many of these problems, but in particular we encourages reuse, subject to attribution to the Reuters Institute. have focused on two areas: (1) the extent to which people are All of the website charts have a feature which allows them to prepared to pay for news or the different ways journalism might be used by – or be embedded in – any other website or blog. be funded in the future, and (2) understanding more about some The website also includes an interactive charting feature, which of the drivers of low, and in some cases declining, trust in the allows anyone to explore and visualise the data by themselves media. For the first time we’ve attempted to measure and by country and over time. Raw data tables are also available visualise relative levels of media polarisation across countries and on request along with documentation for reuse. identify a link between media polarisation and trust. Another focus has been on the media’s relationship with platforms – in particular We hope that all of this will continue to build into an invaluable how news is discovered and consumed within distributed resource for academics, media owners, journalists, and those environments such as social media, search, and online aggregators. developing policy. A description of the methodology is available We have undertaken a tracking study in the UK to understand how on the website along with the complete questionnaire. content flows between these platforms and news brands – and to try to quantify the level of brand attribution that results. Making all this possible, we are hugely grateful to our sponsors: Google, the BBC, Ofcom, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland On the business issues, we have conducted a series of focus (BAI), the Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland, the groups this year in four countries (United States, the United Fritt Ord Foundation in Norway, the Korea Press Foundation, Kingdom, Finland, and Spain) where we talked to both those Edelman UK, as well as our academic sponsors at the Hans who pay for news and those who do not, as well as exploring Bredow Institute, the University of Navarra, the University of consumer attitudes to emerging funding models such as Canberra, the Centre d’études sur les médias, Université Laval, micropayment, donations, native advertising, sponsored Canada and Roskilde University in Denmark. content, and e-commerce. We reference this additional research throughout the report, but in order to do it justice we’ll be We are also grateful to YouGov, our polling company, who did publishing much fuller accounts in the coming months. everything possible to accommodate our increasingly complex requirements and helped our research team analyse and contextualise the data. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Digital News Report 2017 REUTERS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JOURNALISM 6 Slide 1 Country Country Final Total Internet code sample size population penetration Methodology USA USA 2,269 324m 90% UK UK 2,112 65m 92% Germany GER 2,062 81m 89% France FRA 2,000 65m 86% Italy ITA 2,011 62m 63%* This study has been commissioned by the Reuters Institute Spain SPA 2,006 46m 77% for the Study of Journalism to understand how news is being Portugal POR 2,007 10m 68% consumed in a range of countries. Research was conducted by YouGov using an online questionnaire at the end of Ireland IRE 2,002 4.9m 94% January/beginning of February 2017. Norway NOR 2,056 5.1m 96% • The data were weighted to targets based on census/industry Sweden SWE 2,021 9.7m 95% accepted data, such as age, gender, region, newspaper Finland FIN 2,007 5.5m 92% readership, and social grade, to represent the total population of each country. The sample is reflective of the population that Denmark DEN 2,011 5.7m 96% has access to the internet. Belgium BEL 2,009 11m 88% • As this survey deals with news consumption, we filtered out Netherlands NLD 2,006 17m 96% anyone who said that they had not consumed any news in the Switzerland SUI 2,005 8.2m 87% past month, in order to ensure that irrelevant responses didn’t adversely affect data quality. This category was lower than Austria AUT 2,000 8.6m 83% 1% in Finland, averaged around 3% but was as high as 9% Hungary HUN 2,004 9.8m 81% in Australia. Slovakia SVK 2,002 5.4m 83% • A comprehensive online questionnaire1 was designed to Czech Republic CZE 2,003 11m 88% capture all aspects of news consumption. Poland POL 2,013 38m 68% • A number of face-to-face focus groups were held in the US, UK, Finland, and Spain to explore issues relating to paying for news Romania ROU 2,029 20m 56% and digital advertising. These were conducted by Kantar Media. Croatia CRO 2,005 4.2m 74% Greece GRE 2,002 11m 65% Our survey was conducted using established online panels run by Turkey TUR 2,005 78m 60% our polling company YouGov and their partners. Because this is Japan JPN 2,000 126m 94% an online survey the results will under-represent the consumption habits of people who are not online (typically older, South Korea KOR 2,002 51m 89% less affluent, and with limited formal education). Where relevant, Taiwan TWN 1,017 23m 88% we have tried to make this clear within the text. The main purpose is to track the activities and changes over time within the digital Hong Kong HK 2,015 7.4m 82% space – as well as gaining understanding about how offline media Malaysia MYS 2,108 31m 70% and online media are used together.