Facebook platform is slowly losing its appeal as the preferred platform for finding and distributing news while video networks are on the rise.
- •Reuters Institute 2024 Digital News Report links the new development to measures taken by Meta, Facebook’s parent company to reduce support for news industry and regulate misinformation on its its platforms.
- •The study shows YouTube, TikTok (and Instagram), have grown in importance for news since the COVID-19 pandemic drove new habits.
- •The proportion using TikTok for news has grown to 13 per cent (+2) across all markets sampled in the survey and 23 per cent for 18–24s.
“A decade ago, only Facebook and YouTube had a reach of more than 10 per cent for news in most developed markets we have been following since 2014, now there are many more networks, often being used in combination,” notes the study, “Taken together, platforms remain as important as ever – but the role and strategy of individual platforms is changing as they compete and evolve, with Facebook becoming less important.”
The study shows YouTube, TikTok (and Instagram), have grown in importance for news since the COVID-19 pandemic drove new habits. The proportion using TikTok for news has grown to 13 per cent (+2) across all markets sampled in the survey and 23 per cent for 18–24s. More than a third now use the network for news every week in Thailand (39 per cent) and Kenya (36 per cent), with a quarter or more accessing it in Indonesia (29 per cent) and Peru (27 per cent). This compares with just 4 per cent in the UK, 3 per cent in Denmark, and 9 per cent in the United States.
According to the study, the reasons why audiences are attracted to video and other content in social and video platforms include the notion that videos are harder to falsify, the convenience of having news served to you on a platform where you already spend time and that social video platforms are valued for the different perspectives they bring.
“I can find something on nearly any topic, many different worldviews and perspectives, long videos for deep-dives, short form for a quick look, and everything in between,” a respondent (female, 23, USA) told the researchers.
In some African markets, such as Kenya, there’s see a significant difference in concern over TikTok compared with other popular networks such as X or WhatsApp, the most used network for news. The app has been labelled ‘a serious threat to the cultural and religious values of Kenya’ in a petition to parliament after being implicated in the sharing of adult content, misinformation, and hate speech.
“But one other reason for TikTok’s higher score may be because most content there is posted by people they don’t know personally. WhatsApp posts tend to come from a close social circle, who are likely to be more trusted. Paradoxically, this could mean that information spread in WhatsApp carries more danger, because defences may be lower,” the researchers said.
