Traditional broadcasters are struggling to keep up with the Meta owned social media site Instagram which has become the most popular news source for young British teenagers. This according to research commissioned by the UK’s media regulator, with BBC TV channels sliding from first to fifth place in the past year.
An Ofcom report on news consumption in the UK published on Thursday July 21, found that roughly 25 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds watched BBC One and Two, compared with 45 per cent five years ago. Meanwhile, 29 per cent of young teenagers surveyed this year cited Instagram as a source of news.
Young people are increasingly using social media for more than just entertainment but as a news source.
Even though TV networks were considered the most trusted source and news on social media the least reliable, younger people were more likely to access news via digital platforms. Some 46 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds surveyed said they turned to Instagram, compared with 36 per cent who watched bulletins on BBC One.
The Ofcom report found TikTok was the second most popular platform for young teenagers seeking news. It reached 28 per cent of 12-to 15-year-olds, up from 11 per cent two years ago, and enjoyed the largest increase in use among all Britons over the age of 16.
“Teenagers today are increasingly unlikely to pick up a newspaper or tune into TV news, instead preferring to keep up to date by scrolling through their social feeds,” said Yih-Choung Teh, Ofcom’s group director for strategy and research.
“And while youngsters find news on social media to be less reliable, they rate these services more highly for serving up a range of opinions on the day’s topical stories,” he added.
The BBC said it remained the most important news source for young teens when reach via television, radio and online was taken into account. “People are also consuming BBC news on social media platforms such as our hugely popular Instagram account,” it added.
Away from broadcasting, the report showed that newspapers, whether in print or online, were particularly vulnerable to changing news habits. In 2022, only 38 per cent of British adults read a newspaper, down from 51 per cent in 2018.
Meanwhile in America, research conduction last year by Pew Research Center found that 48% of U.S. adults say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes,” a 5 percentage point decline compared with 2020, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted July 26-Aug. 8, 2021.
In a separate question asking users of 10 social media sites whether they regularly get news there, about a third of U.S. adults (31%) say they get news regularly on Facebook, while about one-in-five Americans (22%) say they regularly get news on YouTube. Twitter and Instagram are regular news sources for 13% and 11% of Americans, respectively.
Other social media sites are less likely to be regular news sources. Fewer than one-in-ten Americans say they regularly get news from Reddit (7%), TikTok (6%), LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), WhatsApp (3%) and Twitch (1%).
The percentage of Americans who get news regularly from these sites has remained largely unchanged since 2020, though the share who regularly get news on Facebook has declined slightly (36% in 2020 vs. 31% in 2021).
BBC, The Guardian and Buzz Feed are among the top news sources on instagram.
Social Media For News Source per Country
Here are the top countries and the percentage of adults using social media to source news.
- Kenya – 76%
- South Africa – 75%
- Malaysia – 72%
- The Philippines – 72%
- Chile – 69%
Less than 40% of the respondents in Europe’s industrialized countries namely France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium use social media as a news source.
Social Media Platforms as News Sites for US Adults
Below is the list of popular social media platforms used by American adults to access news regularly.
The percentage of users against each site’s total market is also indicated.
- Facebook – 61% of American adults use Facebook, 31% of which source news from the site
- YouTube – 72% are on YouTube, 22% use it for news
- Twitter – 23% have Twitter accounts and 13% of this total use the platform to access news
- Instagram – 41% of all adults in the US are on Instagram, 11% use it to get news
Sources
| Smart Insights | Statista | Pew Research |
| Pew Research | Pew Research | Sproutsocial |
| Forbes | Statista | The Guardian |
