If you spend as much time as I do with survey data about the news media, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that news audiences — at least here in the U.S. — are on the decline.
To be sure, news consumption tends to come in peaks and troughs around election cycles, and so a languishing news audience in 2022 would fit a predictable pattern. And further, many observers have noted the burnout effect following months of wearying news about Covid-19. (The Knight-Gallup Trust, Media, and Democracy research initiative — for which I am an advisor — saw that audiences were turning away from the news after a 2020 spike in interest.)
But the audience erosion extends beyond episodic boom and bust. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has tracked American usage of major news sources for nearly a decade, and has shown steady — if incremental — declines for not just print and television, but digital, including social news usage as well. (On the latter point, the Pew Research Center has also shown something approaching a cool-down in the last year). Gallup, which has been tracking news consumption for decades, has also shown steady erosion across most sources.
Yet for all the well-documented evidence of news avoidance, we’re also experiencing a moment of acute political hobbyism. Since 2001, Gallup has been polling Americans on their attention to national political news. In September, they recorded their highest measure yet for a non-election year, with 38% of Americans saying they were following national political news “very closely.”
All of this is likely exacerbated by the decline of local, original reporting and the glut of nationally oriented political content that’s more widely accessible than ever before.
As a result, we’re likely to see a 2022 news audience that overall is smaller than before — as more Americans let the news fade into the ambient background or tune out altogether — but those who remain will be even more animated by national political narratives than in the past.
How journalists ought to navigate this terrain, I leave for wiser folks than myself to offer counsel. But to other survey researchers who study media attitudes: It strikes me that the line between politics and news media is becoming blurred to a point of little distinction in the eyes of some, perhaps many, Americans. When we think we’re asking survey respondents about their consumption of news, they might as well be telling us about their consumption of politics. News outlets that were once viewed skeptically as tools of political parties and movements, today may be more likely seen as official organs of those parties and movements.
It’s a whole new era of convergence, one that a growing segment of the American news audience distrusts — but also can’t resist.
Jesse Holcomb is an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Calvin University.
If you spend as much time as I do with survey data about the news media, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that news audiences — at least here in the U.S. — are on the decline.
To be sure, news consumption tends to come in peaks and troughs around election cycles, and so a languishing news audience in 2022 would fit a predictable pattern. And further, many observers have noted the burnout effect following months of wearying news about Covid-19. (The Knight-Gallup Trust, Media, and Democracy research initiative — for which I am an advisor — saw that audiences were turning away from the news after a 2020 spike in interest.)
But the audience erosion extends beyond episodic boom and bust. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has tracked American usage of major news sources for nearly a decade, and has shown steady — if incremental — declines for not just print and television, but digital, including social news usage as well. (On the latter point, the Pew Research Center has also shown something approaching a cool-down in the last year). Gallup, which has been tracking news consumption for decades, has also shown steady erosion across most sources.
Yet for all the well-documented evidence of news avoidance, we’re also experiencing a moment of acute political hobbyism. Since 2001, Gallup has been polling Americans on their attention to national political news. In September, they recorded their highest measure yet for a non-election year, with 38% of Americans saying they were following national political news “very closely.”
All of this is likely exacerbated by the decline of local, original reporting and the glut of nationally oriented political content that’s more widely accessible than ever before.
As a result, we’re likely to see a 2022 news audience that overall is smaller than before — as more Americans let the news fade into the ambient background or tune out altogether — but those who remain will be even more animated by national political narratives than in the past.
How journalists ought to navigate this terrain, I leave for wiser folks than myself to offer counsel. But to other survey researchers who study media attitudes: It strikes me that the line between politics and news media is becoming blurred to a point of little distinction in the eyes of some, perhaps many, Americans. When we think we’re asking survey respondents about their consumption of news, they might as well be telling us about their consumption of politics. News outlets that were once viewed skeptically as tools of political parties and movements, today may be more likely seen as official organs of those parties and movements.
It’s a whole new era of convergence, one that a growing segment of the American news audience distrusts — but also can’t resist.
Jesse Holcomb is an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Calvin University.
Brian Moritz
Gonzalo del Peon
Daniel Eilemberg
Joy Mayer
Mike Rispoli
Cindy Royal
Anika Anand
Zizi Papacharissi
Ståle Grut
Tom Trewinnard
Stefanie Murray
James Green
Larry Ryckman
Sam Guzik
Rachel Glickhouse
Amy Schmitz Weiss
Meena Thiruvengadam
Matthew Pressman
Gordon Crovitz
Chase Davis
Julia Angwin
Victor Pickard
Robert Hernandez
Michael W. Wagner
David Cohn
Jesenia De Moya Correa
Doris Truong
Cristina Tardáguila
Kendra Pierre-Louis
Moreno Cruz Osório
Matt Karolian
Melody Kramer
Jim Friedlich
S. Mitra Kalita
Richard Tofel
A.J. Bauer
Sarah Stonbely
Megan McCarthy
Jennifer Brandel
David Skok
Mario García
Paul Cheung
Eric Nuzum
Jesse Holcomb
Kathleen Searles Rebekah Trumble
Tamar Charney
Laxmi Parthasarathy
Andrew Freedman
Anita Varma
Gabe Schneider
Stephen Fowler
Christina Shih
Juleyka Lantigua
Raney Aronson-Rath
Candace Amos
Millie Tran
Izabella Kaminska
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Ariel Zirulnick
Francesco Zaffarano
Alice Antheaume
Catalina Albeanu
j. Siguru Wahutu
Nik Usher
Kristen Jeffers
Joanne McNeil
Wilson Liévano
Joe Amditis
Kristen Muller
Christoph Mergerson
James Salanga
Kerri Hoffman
Jessica Clark
Don Day
AX Mina
Mandy Jenkins
Jody Brannon
Jonas Kaiser
Anthony Nadler
Mary Walter-Brown
Errin Haines
Matt DeRienzo
Tony Baranowski
Joshua P. Darr
Shalabh Upadhyay
Sarah Marshall
Natalia Viana
Burt Herman
Chicas Poderosas
Simon Allison
Jennifer Coogan
Joni Deutsch
Cherian George
Simon Galperin
Parker Molloy
John Davidow
Amara Aguilar
Julia Munslow
Shannon McGregor Carolyn Schmitt
Whitney Phillips