Last January I made reference to my belief that the Gallup Lifestyle survey’s measures regarding print and on-line news consumption are likely to be errant. I then offered up some complicating factors regarding the survey’s methodology and language. I had attempted to contact Gallup via email for a response, but received not so much as a reply. It seems they like to be the ones asking the questions.
That the way we consume news and information has changed—and is changing—is not itself news. Indeed, we are reminded daily. For instance, I was recently contacted by The Economist to participate in a survey regarding the magazine’s plans to begin an online audio version of the weekly print magazine. The audio version launched in July, making The Economist the first international newsweekly to offer a full audio version of each week’s edition. It logs in at around 130 megabytes per week and is currently only available in English.
Last year, McKinsey & Company, the management consultancy, conducted its own survey regarding news consumption, the results of which were recently published in web-format. The design and logic of the McKinsey survey is far more nuanced than Gallup’s approach and provides a better understanding of just how the marketplace for news and information is evolving.
The main thesis derived from research of the aforementioned Gallup poll was that local TV news is king of news sources based on frequency and volume of use; internet-based sources are still growing in use, but that growth has slackened of late. For reasons stated in the prior essay, I felt this conclusion rather undershot the true impact of the internet.
McKinsey also attempts to segment its survey-takers according to their exposure to and use of a variety of news sources. The survey confirmed what most of us already assume: those folks who are the heaviest consumers of news use the internet far more frequently than those who are more casual news consumers.
The upshot is that the casual news consumer is still using the sources he or she always has used—newspapers, cable and network news, radio, etc. McKinsey calls these folks “traditionalists” and claims that they compose 17% of the marketplace. This low figure does not square with the Gallup data, unless you begin accounting for each individual’s volume of usage, something the Gallup poll doesn’t do effectively enough. Traditionalists rank third among the groups McKinsey has invented, which might suggest regular usage, but not necessarily heavy usage.
Of the categories McKinsey has devised—“citizen reader,” “digital cynic,” “news lover,” “traditionalist,” “a few main sources,” “headliner,” and “uninvolved”—the “digital cynic” is the most interesting to consider as a construct. McKinsey claims that this group, which composed 18% of its survey cohort, is characterized by its skepticism regarding traditional news sources, or as it puts it:
…digital cynics enjoy consuming news much less than other respondents do and feel little responsibility to stay informed. What’s more, nearly half of those in this group say that all news sources are biased, and many report that they trust few news sources to provide accurate information. In addition, digital cynics were the most likely respondents to avail themselves of alternative news sources, such as blogs or comedy news programs (The Daily Show, for instance). Digital cynics, like citizen readers, are heavy consumers of TV and the Internet but have more or less abandoned newspapers.
But before making assumptions about who or what this group is, you would do well to explore the rest of the profile provided by the data. For instance, compared with the other groups, the cynics are less well-educated, less interested in international news, and less interested in business and financial news, and according to the average age of each group, they are significantly younger than “traditionalists” and “citizen readers.” They also spend significantly less time per week consuming news.
Is this the ‘young and dumb’ crowd? After all, ignorance often masquerades as cynicism.
It might also provide more ammunition for those, like former Dow Jones CEO Peter Kann, who sense a dramatic, and damaging, blurring of the line separating news from entertainment.
No comments:
Post a Comment