News Consumption Patterns in American Politics - October 2015

[LiberalArkie]

Overview
Since Kennedy and Nixon it’s been acknowledged that politics and media go hand in hand. Each U.S. election serves as a tentpole subject for the media industry that year, showcasing the developments in media coverage that have happened since the last election cycle. At the start of Obama’s presidency, digital outlets like Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post were only fledgling websites, and Twitter and Facebook were merely social media entities – now, these platforms are all key outlets for breaking news.

As the political climate changes, so does the nature of media coverage. This begs the question: what are the media consumption habits of Americans today? Moreover, how do their politics affect their media consumption, and vice versa?

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Part I: Who’s following the 2016 election?
Overall, survey respondents were very interested in keeping up with the 2016 election season, with 4 out of 5 respondents reporting that they were planning to follow the election (79.55%). While over half of respondents are keeping an eye on election coverage to stay informed, about 1 in 5 identify as avid politics followers who are planning to keep up with the election simply because they love politics. Some are only in it for the entertainment value, with almost 10% of respondents following because they think the candidates are entertaining.

Still, 20.45% of respondents stated they were not planning to follow the election at all. About half of those respondents stated that their reasoning for not following was that they didn’t like politics, while the rest didn’t plan to follow the election because they dislike the media coverage (9.70%). In particular, millennials (ages 18- 29) were the least likely to be interested in politics, with only 12.04% stating that they planned to follow the election because they love politics.

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[xynthee]

1. Lots of interesting stuff there

no idea how scientific or whatever it is (I hope someone will chime in on that), but makes for interesting reading.

snips:

The Hillary Clinton supporter
They are the most fragmented across platforms:
Digital outlets, broadcast TV outlets like NBC News, and cable TV outlets like Fox News and MSNBC respectively
garnered about a quarter of Clinton’s supporters (22.99% each), followed by physical newspapers and social media at 13.79% respectively.

They read the least number of articles: 33.33% read less than 5 articles per week.

They are the most likely to be frustrated by the repetition in news cycles: 40.23% stated that their greatest frustration was that the news “repeats the same stories over and over again.”

The Bernie Sanders supporter
They follow the news:
Only 4.24% reported that they do not follow current events, the lowest of any supporter group.
They like to follow international news, and aren’t very interested in local news: 1 in 5 of Sanders supporters chose international news as their favorite to follow, the most of any candidate (20.35%). Only 8.85% liked to follow local news, the least of any candidate.

They heavily rely on digital outlets, and dislike television:
55.75% of Sanders supporters get their news from digital outlets, far more than any other candidate. Only 16.81% primarily get their news from cable or broadcast TV, the least of any group. 60.18% watch less than 2 hours of news content per week.

They are far more likely to read the news:
While the other groups were a near 50/50 split between reading and watching the news, a whopping 73.45% of Sanders supporters preferred to read the news. 40.71% read more than 15 articles per week.

They primarily use their computers for news:
53.98% get their news on their computers, more than any other candidate.

They’re the most frustrated by clickbait:
42.48% chose clickbait as their greatest frustration with the news. They’re also the least susceptible to clickbait
–78.81% chose a more objective headline over a subjective headline.

[LiberalArkie]

2. It is a lot to digest.