PEW reporting:
On Facebook, the largest social media platform, news is a common but
incidental experience, according to an initiative of Pew Research Center
in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Overall, about half of adult Facebook users, 47%, “ever” get news there. That amounts to 30% of the population.
Most U.S. adults do not go to Facebook seeking news out, the
nationally representative online survey of 5,173 adults finds. Instead,
the vast majority of Facebook news consumers, 78%, get news when they
are on Facebook for other reasons. And just 4% say it is the most
important way they get news. As one respondent summed it up, “I believe
Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for
it.”
However, the survey provides evidence that Facebook exposes some
people to news who otherwise might not get it. While only 38% of heavy
news followers who get news on Facebook say the site is an important way
they get news, that figure rises to 47% among those who follow the news
less often. “If it wasn’t for Facebook news,” wrote one respondent,
“I’d probably never really know what’s going on in the world because I
don’t have time to keep up with the news on a bunch of different
locations.”
In particular, younger adults, who as a group are less engaged than their elders are with news on other platforms,
are as engaged, if not more so, with news on Facebook. Young people
(18- to 29– year-olds) account for about a third, 34%, of Facebook news
consumers. That far outpaces the 20% that they account for among
Facebook users who do not get news on the site.
http://www.journalism.org/2013/10/24/the-role-of-news-on-facebook/
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