According to a survey by Pew Research Center, online news has become more popular than reading newspapers in the US.
Pew Research Center says that it is the third most popular form of news after local and national TV stations, with around one-third of cell phone owners using their devices to catch up on the latest information.
“News awareness is becoming an anytime, anywhere, any device activity for those who want to stay informed,” it says.
Among the online sources of news, MSNBC (31%), Yahoo(23%), CNN(23%), Google(9%), and AOL (8%) were some of the leading sources for online news gatherers.
According to the survey, an overwhelming majority of Americans, 92 % use multiple resources for news, while 57% goes through two and five websites as part of their news gathering.
On a typical day, 61% of the respondents said they got their news and out of which 78% of them from local news and 71% from national TV networks.
Only 17% said they read news in a national paper.
The survey showed that regular readers of newspapers – either local or national papers – have dropped drastically to 50% in the last 10 years.
Blogs discussing news events were popular among youngster especially those ages 18-24.
Also, with the growing popularity of the internet in the last decade and more recently with the introduction of mobile phone technology, phone users can access to the latest news anytime and anywhere. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, where users shares information and stories have also become a source of online news for many people.
“In this new multi-platform media environment, people’s relationship to news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory,” says the survey report.
