Many Americans rely social media for news

Question

The Pew Research Center article titled "News Consumption Across Social Media in 2021" explains how Americans consume news on various social media platforms. It reveals that while a big portion of U.S. adults still get their news from social media, this trend has slightly declined compared to previous years. Facebook remains the most popular platform for news, followed by YouTube and Twitter, with younger users increasingly turning to Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat for news. Despite the frequent use of social media for news, the accuracy of information on these platforms is low. Most users consume news in short clips or snippets, rarely looking for in-depth analysis or other viewpoints, which can contribute to the spread of misinformation.

Comments

I agree with this statement and found evidence to back it up. I read the article published by the Pew Research Center and reviewed the facts. For example,  31% of American adults absorb their news from Facebook, and 22% get their news from YouTube. The PRC is a trusted source and the authors of the article clearly state how and what methods they used to receive their data, including what groups they included in their scientific studies. These studies were done within the last five years as well, in 2020 and 2021, which makes them still relevant today.

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While the article does suggest that social media remains one of the most important news sources for Americans, popularity is on the decline. You have Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter as your main news platforms, with the younger audience moving toward Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. Also that misinformation is a pain and the people who read news only in small snippets. The report points out a little earlier that many Americans still rely on social media for news but have little trust in these media for good information. It also mentions that the tendency for users to consume news primarily through short clips and headline snippets contributes to the dissemination of misinformation and limits exposure to different viewpoints. I as well looked into the website https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/11/social-media-adults-information-news-platforms/, which completely agrees with this article, and even sites it as well. Good work, this is a reliable website and a good claim!

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I also agree with this take, this is very well researched. And there are multiple other websites that can back up this claim. I found one from PBS where  it states that 1 in 4 Americans will get their news from news influencers, especially for political sources. The majority of political influencers are men with no media background. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/about-20-of-americans-get-their-news-from-social-media-influencers-report-finds

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This is a good point. The reliance on social media for news, especially in short snippets, makes fact-checking even more important, especially since misinformation spreads so easily.

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I think that it is true that many Americans rely on social media but it is primarly the younger generations, my parents still use many different sources for news, although I myself use apps like TikTok and instagram as the main way I find news, I think the specification is necessary because the main people that are interested in the news are the older generations

Answer 1

I believe that this claim can be true. The Pew research center is a very trustworthy source. In research I have done when searching the title of this claim the first article to come up is the one from Pew Research Center. Other outlets like PBS also comment on this topic. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/about-20-of-americans-get-their-news-from-social-media-influencers-report-finds. PBS is a very reliable source. They make the same claim that 20% of Americans get their news from social media. The article also states that 85% of news influencers have a presence on social media, like X, therefore they are likely to put news out making it easily accessible to all people. 

Answer 2

While it could be debated which number would be "many," it has been discovered that more than 52% of Americans get their news from digital platforms. This has, of course, been an upward trend that will inevitably continue to grow as tech evolves and we become more and more reliant on our social media devices.

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/

Answer 3

From reading the article provided, I agree that "Many Americans Rely on Social Media for News." I found this article to focus on the same topic. PBS News states, "About one in five Americans – and a virtually identical share of Republicans and Democrats – regularly get their news from digital influencers who are more likely to be found on the social media platform X, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Research Center." It is common in this day and age to rely on short-formed content to get our news. Short-form content is easier to access since our phones are always on us, and over the years, social media has become more popular with the new generation than televised news. The article I found talks about how news broadcasters are even starting to post on social media. The article provided says "No social media site included here has regular news consumers who are more likely to be Republican or lean Republican." I thought this was interesting and could bring up some political talk about how the right consumes news and how the left consumes news. PBS News states something similar, saying, "Pew said about half of the influencers it sampled did not express a clear political orientation. From the ones that did, slightly more of them identified as conservative than as liberal." Each article has a different sight of which political party engages in social media for more news, which I find a little biased. Ultimately, I believe the claim that "Many Americans Rely on Social Media for News," and think more people need to look to other places for the trusted information they are engaging in.

Answer 4

The article that you selected to back your claim is credible. The Pew Research Center is a nonprofit organization that provides information on social issues and demographic trends throughout the United States. I did find an article from the Pew Research Center that has more current statistics, as the one you cited was from 2021, Social Media and News Fact Sheet. This article now says that over half (54%) of U.S. adults get their information from social media. Now Facebook and Youtube are the two most popular sites for news. Some of the statistics about different demographics and certain app usages have also changed a bit. If someone wanted to dive deeper into this claim it would be interesting to look into the amount of misinformation that happens because of the reliance on social media as a news source.

Answer 5

This is true. According to PBS News, about 20% of Americans rely on social media for their news. This news is comes from many different social media platforms including X (Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. Many influencers promote their words and products on all platforms, allowing for more consumers ti view his content.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/about-20-of-americans-get-their-news-from-social-media-influencers-report-finds

Answer 6

I agree that social media is a major source of news, but it can sometimes be unreliable. According to the Pew Research Center, more Americans are getting their news from social media, with younger people turning to platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. These platforms make it easy to access news quickly, but as I mentioned before, they are less reliable. Even though news sources can be misleading sometimes and spread misinformation, it's more common for that type of thing to happen on social media. Misinformation can spread because people often just accept what they see without looking for other viewpoints or confirming the facts. Social media companies have claimed that they do not take part in policing content on their platforms, this backs up the idea of social media not being as reliable.

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/

https://www.miamistudent.net/article/2024/03/read-the-news?ct=content_open&cv=cbox_latest

Answer 7

I think the statement "Many Americans rely on social media for news" is correct. Social media has become something that consumes a majority of peoples lives, especially younger people. It can be very easy to get our news from social media because we already spend a lot of time on Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, YouTube, etc. According to PBS, 1 in 5 Americans (20%) use social media to find news. This can be an issue because the people on social media who promote different types of news can have no background with that topic and can often be unreliable. Getting news from unreliable sources can cause problems and confusion, especially in politics. 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/about-20-of-americans-get-their-news-from-social-media-influencers-report-finds

Answer 8

I completely agree with this perspective because it is well-researched and supported by multiple sources. For example, a PBS article highlights that one in four Americans now rely on news influencers for their political information. Notably, most of these influencers are men without any formal background in media. With how popular social media is today, it also would make sense that people get their news through social media.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/about-20-of-americans-get-their-news-from-social-media-influencers-report-finds

Answer 9

I agree with this especially in a day in age where social media is trending. People rather watch a 60 sec video clip than actually sit and read a news paper or watch the news in the morning.

Answer 10

This is true. I looked through an artical by CNBC, which talked about research from the Pew Research Center, which gives Americans information on social issues and trends that shape the world today. Because of the amount of users that use so many different types of platforms, many users have experienced the spread of misinformation on platforms they use daily. Platforms today aren't usually politically swung one way or another, so the spread of incorrect information spreads rapidly, which gets a lot of people confused. When paper news was one of the only sources to get news, people often either read an article or not based on their beliefs. Now, all people do is scroll and read on sentence which leads them to believe on thing or another.  Social media is one of the most used things today, which spreads misinformation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/18/more-americans-get-news-from-social-media-influencers.html