Digital News Report 2024
PAGBABAGO
Since it started four years ago, the Digital News Report (DNR) Survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism had shown significant changes in news media readership and viewership.
More Filipinos or 47 percent rated themselves as “interested in the news,” an all-time low compared with last year’s 52 percent and in 2020 when a strong interest was at a high of 60 percent. Regarded as the most comprehensive global survey of 94,943 adults across 47 media markets, it had 2,104 Filipino participants.
Interest in the news media declined more sharply among the 18 to 24 year-olds or those who grew up alongside the rise of social media networks.
Adult Filipinos relied less on Facebook and other social media platforms for news, and had turned to Tiktok. Usage of Facebook as a source of news had gone down from 72 percent to 61 percent over the past year. DNR also found Filipinos shifting from other traditional media platforms for news. YouTube had gone down by 10 percent to 45 percent, Facebook Messenger to 26 percent and X (Twitter), to nine percent.
There is a rising popularity of short news videos, a diminishing presence of mainstream news media on several social media platforms, and a continuing loss of interest in news, and a growing concern over misinformation. It noted that internet users in 28 countries felt uneasy about content generated by AI even with some human oversight, and felt more comfortable with AI assisting journalists for such tasks as transcribing interviews or preparing summaries of research studies.
In her analysis of responses in the Philippine country report, UP Associate Professor Yvonne T. Chua cites the following:
• Online and social media remain the most popular sources of news in the country with ALLTV owned by former Senate President Manny Villar, and Prime Media Holdings for news programs.
• Roles of online influencers and traditional journalists are evolving rapidly. Across all markets, traditional news brands and journalists maintain a prominent position on platforms like FB, X, often ahead of influencers.
• The dynamics of news sources vary significantly. Mainstream journalists and media are the leading news sources on X and YouTube at 53 percent.
• For age group 18 to 24, journalists and news media mostly lead. The top three sources of news are more diverse and include smaller or alternative media as well as politicians. The proportion of those accessing alternative news media have increased to 35 percent in both YouTube and Tiktok.
Nic Newman, senior editor and digital strategies cites trends in the news industry based on a survey of 514 news leaders in 56 countries.
• Only half of editors, CEOs and digital executives say they are confident about the prospects for journalists in the year ahead.
• The disruptive power of AI will sweep through the information space this year. A forecast suggests that much of internet content will be synthetically provided by 2026. Distribution is set for a major upheaval as the Search Generative Experiences (SGE) will start to roll out across the Internet along with a host of AI-driven chatbots that will offer a faster and more intuitive way to access information.
• Following a sharp decline in referral traffic for Facebook and X, these changes are likely to reduce audience flows from established news sites and more pressure on the bottom line.
• The low confidence is based on rising costs, declining advertising revenue, and a slowing in subscription growth and increasing legal and physical harassment.
• Almost 65 percent say they are worried about a decline in referral traffic from social media sites.
• Many plan to create more videos, newsletters, podcasts but the same number of news articles.
Finally, a majority expressed a strong belief in the value of journalism but great uncertainty about the year ahead. (Florangel.braid@gmail.com