We see increasing appetite for news personalised to suit individual interests but worries about missing out and not being updated about important stories. Some publishers are therefore looking at using AI to help with this, and we have seen several examples of this such as a Norwegian publisher’s video summary of the day, an Indian newspaper’s personalised notification app, or Nong Marisa in Thailand who is an artificial intelligence news anchor on Mono 29 TV. However, in some countries, traditional media brands are losing out to online personalities and influencers who attract attention for their content. This is particularly the case on TikTok where personality-led creators play a big role, especially in Norway and Kenya, and often outperform established news organisations. These personalities and influencers over-index with young men, right-leaning audiences and those who have low trust in mainstream media, seeing it as biased or part of a liberal elite.
Overall we have seen a continuing growth in news use on online platforms, with six networks reaching 10% or more of our global sample weekly compared to two a decade ago. This is driven by the growing importance of social media/video networks such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X and also by newer apps such as WhatsApp, YouTube and IG with younger demographics.
Other networks such as Reddit, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon are gaining popularity in some countries but overall have very small reach with our global sample. We have also seen a resurgence in interest in podcasts and online news sites which offer long-form journalism but have struggled to gain traction on the big platforms.