Americans Who Mainly Get Their News on Social Media Are Less Engaged, Less Knowledgeable
U.S. adults in this group are less likely to get the facts right about COVID-19 and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.
Elisa Shearer is a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, where she focuses on U.S. media consumption and attitudes. She is the author of reports on news consumption on social media, U.S. media polarization, Americans’ changing media habits, and media sector data. She has a master’s degree in communication studies from Georgetown University.
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Local news is playing an important role for Americans during COVID-19 outbreak
Some 61% of U.S. adults say they follow COVID-19 news at both the national and local level equally, and 23% say they pay more attention to local news.
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Three Months In, Many Americans See Exaggeration, Conspiracy Theories and Partisanship in COVID-19 News
After three months of news and information, 64% of U.S. adults say the CDC mostly gets the facts about the outbreak right; 30% say the same about President Trump and his administration.
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Majorities of Americans Say News Coverage of George Floyd Protests Has Been Good, Trump’s Public Message Wrong
Among black Americans, 72% say coverage has been good or excellent and 85% say Trump’s message has been completely or mostly wrong.
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Americans Who Rely Most on White House for COVID-19 News More Likely to Downplay the Pandemic
People in this group are most likely to say the outbreak has been made too big of a deal and journalists have been exaggerating the risks.
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About Seven-in-Ten U.S. Adults Say They Need to Take Breaks From COVID-19 News
61% give equal attention to national and local coronavirus news.
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U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided
As the U.S. enters a heated 2020 presidential election year, Republicans and Democrats place their trust in two nearly inverse news media environments.
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Americans Are Wary of the Role Social Media Sites Play in Delivering the News
Getting news from social media is an increasingly common experience; nearly three-in-ten U.S. adults do so often.
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Older Americans, Black Adults and Americans With Less Education More Interested in Local News
Older Americans, black adults and those with a high school education or less show considerably more interest in local news than their counterparts.
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Social media outpaces print newspapers in the U.S. as a news source
One-in-five U.S. adults often get news via social media, slightly higher than the 16% who often do so from print newspapers.
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