Digital News Report 2012
DOI: 10.60625/risj-swqm-bx95
The Reuters Institute Digital Report 2012 reveals new insights about digital news consumption across Europe and the United States.
Based on a representative survey of online news consumers across five countries – UK, US, Germany, France and Denmark – the report is the start of an ambitious project to track changing digital news behaviour over the next decade.
Key International Findings
- There are significant differences in how regularly people keep up with the news across our surveyed countries. More than 9 in 10 Germans access the news at least once a day compared with only 3 in 4 people in the United Kingdom.
- The rapid switch from print to digital in the United States is not being replicated exactly in European countries. Germany is showing the strongest allegiance to traditional viewing and reading habits and has the lowest levels of internet news use.
- In the UK, news about politics is perceived to be less important – and celebrity news more important – compared to the other countries surveyed.
- There is more interest in business and especially economic news in the UK and the US than in the European countries surveyed.
One in five of our UK sample (20%) share news stories each week via email or social networks – but in general Europe lags behind the United States in both the sharing of news and other forms of digital participation.
