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Digital News Landscape

fact sheet

Social Media and News Fact Sheet

Overall, about half of U.S. adults (53%) say they at least sometimes get news from social media, roughly stable over the last few years. Facebook and YouTube outpace all other social media sites as places where Americans regularly get news.

data essay

What Is News?

As people are exposed to more information from more sources than ever before, how they define and feel about “news” has become less clear-cut.

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Digital News Landscape

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  • report

    The Year in News 2011

    What stories and which people generated the most news coverage in 2011? PEJ’s annual Year in the News report offers answers. The Year in News 2011 Interactive allows users to explore the data for themselves.

  • report

    How Mainstream Media Outlets Use Twitter

    Twitter has been embraced by news organizations today, but is used in limited ways, according to a new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and The George Washington University.

  • report

    The Tablet Revolution

    Key findings from a survey report on tablet news consumption by the Project for Excellence in collaboration with the Economist Group.

  • report

    How People Learn About Their Local Community

    How do people get news and information about the community where they live? Traditional research has suggested that Americans watch local TV news more than any other local information source. But a new report by the PEJ and the Pew Internet and American Life Project, in association with the Knight Foundation offers a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the ecosystem of community information.

  • report

    Navigating News Online

    The future of the journalism relies heavily on understanding the ways people consume news online. But mastering that information is challenging. Behavior is changing quickly, and the metrics can be elusive and even contradictory. In a new study, PEJ examines Nielsen data from the top 25 most popular news sites to offer insights about how people get to news sites; what they do once there and where they go when they leave.

  • short reads

    Online Newspapers Gain on Print

    As the New York Times begins charging for access to its website, the gap between the number of Americans who read newspaper online and in print continues to narrow.

  • presentation

    How social can news get?

    Lee Rainie speaks at a conference on citizen journalism and social media (updated with slides)

  • report

    A New Phase in Our Digital Lives

    The latest biennial survey on news consumption from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reveals signs of a new era in the acquisition and consumption of news—and there is reason to expect the shift will accelerate. What is the nature of this new era, and why is it happening? A commentary on the findings by PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel.

  • presentation

    News Consumption 2010: Portable, Participatory and Personal

    This talk highlights how today’s changing information ecology, specifically the increasing use of social media and mobile technologies, has altered the way consumers access and interact with news and information.