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Posts tagged with: Social

March 01, 2010

Pew: How cell phones, internet have turned news into a social experience

In the last few years, the social aspects of news have shifted from the sidelines to center stage, thanks to the evolution of internet and mobile technology. A new report from the Pew Research Center’s Project on Excellence in Journalism explains how this works. See: How internet and cell phone users have turned news into a social experience

A few highlights…

  • Popularity: “The internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a news platform on a typical day and now ranks just behind TV.”
  • Portability: “33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.”
  • Personalization: “28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.”
  • Participation: “37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. ...More than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in e-mails.”
  • Socializing: “Getting news is often an important social act. Some 72% of American news consumers say they follow the news because they enjoy talking with others about what is happening in the world and 69% say keeping up with the news is a social or civic obligation. And 50% of American news consumers say they rely to some degree on people around them to tell them the news they need to know.”

The mobile aspects are especially interesting. About 80% of American adults have cell phones, 37% of them use their phones to acces the net. Just over one quarter of all Americans (33% of US cell phone owners) get at least some news via cell phone today. Here’s the kind of mobile news they get:

  • Weather: 26%
  • News and current events: 25%
  • Applications for news content: 18%
  • Sports scores and stories: 16%
  • Traffic: 13%
  • Financial: 12%
  • News via e-mail and text messaging: 11%

The complete report is available online.

By Amy Gahran, 03/01/10 at 3:34 pm
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