In this section we publish a market-based view of the findings, which includes an overview of the most important data points in terms of news.  These include an overview of consumption in each market, including details of the most popular news brands – traditional and online. The pages also contain statistics about the different sources of news over time, the role of different social networks, and levels of payment for online news. Information is drawn from the 2026 Digital News Report survey using our methodology, with the exception of population data from the United Nations,¹ internet penetration data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU),² and press freedom scores from Reporters Without Borders.³

Data from India, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are representative of younger English-speakers rather than the national population. The survey was fielded in English in these markets (respondents had the option of selecting Hindi in India and Swahili in Kenya, but the majority selected English), and restricted to ages 18 to 50 in Kenya and Nigeria.  In markets where internet penetration is lower, our data often represent younger and more affluent groups – even if they meet other nationally representative quotas. For all these reasons, one should be cautious in comparing some data points across markets where we know these limitations apply. In a few markets we do not ask certain questions (such as on paying for news and podcasts) because sample differences could lead to misunderstandings or misleading comparisons. We have also signalled important details about samples in a short note on the country page, where relevant. We have ordered the countries and markets by geography (Europe, Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Africa) and within each region countries are then ordered alphabetically – with the exception of UK at the start of the Europe section and the United States at the start of the Americas. 

Questions about use of individual social media and video networks (e.g. Facebook, X, Instagram) both for any purpose and for news content were repolled in all markets in the second half of March after an issue was discovered in the way these brands were presented to respondents in the original fieldwork. In the United States we repolled some questions in the final week of March about online payment. A merger between two well-known radio stations (Caracol Radio and W Radio) took place in Colombia while fieldwork was underway. We decided to repoll questions about news brand reach and trust in Colombia to take account of this merger. All repolling was conducted with 1,000 respondents, using the same quotas as the original fieldwork.

Footnotes