News consumers around the world are now turning more to social media and video platforms than traditional media for information, a respected report said on Tuesday, warning that old-style business models are under threat.
The year 2026 marks “an important milestone: for the first time, consumption of social media and video networks is now ahead of other news sources as the most used news source globally,” with 54 percent, wrote Jim Egan, lead author of the report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
The annual report from the institute, attached to the University of Oxford, is a closely watched tracker of trends reshaping the news media.
The researchers based their findings on online surveys of almost 100,000 people in 48 countries, conducted earlier this year by pollsters YouGov.
This year’s edition found that 54 percent of respondents said they got news from social media or video platforms in the week before the survey — rising to 56 percent if AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT were included.
That beat the 52 percent who referred to TV news, 51 percent to newspaper apps or websites, and 21 percent to radio.
– Income decreases –
While it was the first time that new platforms topped older ones in the global survey average, individual countries had already passed the tipping point.
However, in some countries, especially in Europe, traditional media websites and apps remain ahead for now.
“It’s better to think of this as more of a shift than a change, but it’s an important moment nonetheless,” Egan wrote.
In the global survey, three out of 10 respondents said social media or video platforms were their main source of news.
Among 18-24-year-olds, the proportion increased by half.
Different social networks also create different usage patterns.
Most respondents visited X or YouTube specifically to find news.
But on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, users were more likely to come across news while doing something else.
Television remained the main source of news only among those aged 45-54 and over 55.
Responses regarding traditional media apps and websites were also dismal, with none of the age bracket surveyed saying they were their first port of call for news.
“This has obvious implications for the prospects for audience reach, engagement and monetization potential,” wrote Egan, a former senior executive at the BBC.
The scale of the challenge in finding the revenue to pay for reporting is clear from the fact that only 17 percent of respondents said they pay for information online.
Meanwhile, Internet giants like Google and Meta have captured a giant share of the advertising market – at the expense of traditional media.
– Loss of confidence –
The 180-page report reinforces large-scale trends that have been operating in media for years, including a growing appetite for video content, increased power for individual news content creators and a loss of trust in traditional media.
That last measure hit an all-time low, with just 37 percent of respondents saying they trust “most of the news most of the time.”
People are also increasingly turning to AI chatbots for news, which was the focus of last year’s Reuters Institute report.
About 10 percent of respondents said they used chatbots for weekly news, up from seven percent last year.
“How to respond to the rapid development and proliferation of generative AI is the biggest 360-degree challenge for today’s news leaders and policymakers,” Egan wrote.
More broadly, he noted “marked volatility in many of the indicators” tracked in the report, against a backdrop of growing geopolitical uncertainty.
“Some of this year’s report makes disturbing reading, but it’s a particularly uncertain time for both the news media sector and the world at large,” Egan wrote.
