Social Media & News Participatory Consumer (News Environment in USA)

Social media is a kind of social structure formed by dependent interwoven nods. Recent studies provided new insights on how the popularity of blogs, social media, and other user-generated content venues impacted the way in which news is consumed, reported or disseminated. The study explores social media and news participatory audience. In other word, it examined the way in which individuals use social media to share and consume news stories and thus if they feel more informed as a result. The study, overall, based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on people's use of the Internet. The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted between December 2009 and January 2010, among a sample of 2,259 people, age 18 and older. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 2. 3 percentage points. For results based Internet users (n=1,675), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2. 7 percentage points. A combination of landline and cellular random digit dial (RDD) samples was used to represent all adults in the continental US who have access to either a landline or cellular telephone. The majority of respondents disclosed that they share news to stay connected with family and friends. The respondents’ report that they thus depend on their network of friends to guide them to news article, as they are a good representation for their own interest. The study found that individuals under the age 35 rely heavily on their social networks for tips and alerts to news stories. The majority of all respondents are exposed to news stories that they may have otherwise missed or overlooked as a result of Facebook and Twitter.