Many Asia-Pacific markets more digitally developed than Europe and North America
01 Nov 2017
The Asia-Pacific supplementary report of the Digital News Report 2017 takes a close look at how people get news and use media in seven Asia-Pacific markets.
Based on data from the 2017 Digital News Report survey, it shows that most markets in the region are shaped by the spread of smartphones and the rise of platforms, but also characterised by some publishers who maintain a strong direct connection with their users.
The report has been produced in collaboration between the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, led by Professor Francis Lee working with Michael Chan, Hsuan-Ting Chen, Dennis K. K. Leung, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.
It finds that online platforms, including social media, have become the most widely used and important source of news in most countries in the region, surpassing television and print. Markets like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan are clearly more digitally developed than most markets in North American and Western Europe.
In addition to these clear commonalities, the report also document pronounced differences from market to market – in several Asia-Pacific markets, including Japan, people engage in far fewer forms of online news participation than in for example in the US and the UK. Japan and South Korea also have lower levels of smartphone use and social media use than other markets in the region. Australia stands out from the six other markets considered with a news and media environment that has more in common with the US and the UK.
