Social Networks as a Source of News
People are increasingly learning about news stories via social networks, but the percentage is still small.
About 47 percent of adult U.S. Facebook users "ever" get news on Facebook, according to a Pew Research Center survey in August-September 2013. Just 4 percent said Facebook was the most important way they got news.
Only 27 percent of American adults regularly or sometimes get news or news headlines through social networking sites, according to a report by the Pew Research Center released in September 2011. The number increased to 38 percent for people under 30.
During the 2012 presidential primary elections, only 20 percent of people regularly or sometimes got campaign information from Facebook and only 5 percent from Twitter, according to a Pew Research Center survey in February 2012.
A survey by the Reynolds Journalism Institute found that nearly 63 percent of people surveyed said they prefer news stories produced by professional journalists, while less than 21 percent said they prefer to get most of their news from friends they trust.
But Facebook is more popular as a news source among younger people.
Among people 18 to 29 years old, 52 percent get news from Facebook, the top news source for the young, according to a USC Annenberg/Los Angeles Times poll in 2012. That compares with 25 percent of people overall who get news from Facebook.