News in the Age of Participation by Gerrit Visser

How to Recognize The Future When It Lands On You
Technologies of Cooperation
March 1st, 2010

News is changing. How we get news, where we get news, how we react to news, what we do with news when we get it and on and on.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project published today a report that takes a look at this rapidly changing area of our lives and the impact it has.

Full Pew Survey report via Frank Reed Marketing Pilgrim via smartmobs.com blog

In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone. The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day.

Here are a few pieces of data to consider about news:

Portable : 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.

Personalized : 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.

Participatory : 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.