A new study has found that nearly 60 per cent of Canadians — the equivalent of more than 15 million people — regularly visit social networking websites, with the majority of users saying social media exposes them to a broader range of news and information than traditional media.
These findings, from a new study led by Prof. Alfred Hermida of the Graduate School of Journalism, help to illustrate the dramatic impact that Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are having on news production and consumption in Canada.
“News is increasingly becoming a shared social experience online for Canadians thanks to new digital platforms and services,” says Hermida, whose study is the third in a research series for the Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC), which is based at UBC.
“This study shows how Canadians are using social networks as personalized news streams, with news selected and filtered by family, friends and acquaintances.”
More than 18 million Canadians are now on Facebook alone. More than two-thirds of those surveyed who use social networks such as Facebook value them as a way of staying informed, with the majority saying social media exposes them to a broader range of news and information than traditional media.
The report is particularly timely, given concerns that Canadians might share election results online this coming Monday before polls close, flouting a 1938 ban on the early broadcasting of results.
The study found some surprising gender and geographic differences. For example, online recommendations accounted for 50 per cent of the daily news intake of Canadian women, compared to 36 per cent for men. The study also found that nearly 50 per cent of francophones got their daily news from friends and family.
The study, Social Networks Transforming How Canadians Get The News, (PDF), was co-authored by Hermida and fellow UBC researchers Donna Logan, Fred Fletcher and Darryl Korell.
It is based on data from a survey of nearly 1,700 Canadian adults by Angus Reid Public Opinion.
