Welcome to The Future of Journalism, a podcast from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.
I'm Fredricka Cherubini. This is a special series of our podcast, and it's dedicated to regional news report.
Twenty, twenty one over six episodes.
We are diving into the findings of the report, which is the most comprehensive piece of research on news consumption around the world,
and the head of leadership development at the institute. And for this podcast, I'll be joined by the authors of the report.
Our guest today is Dr. Anne Schultz, postdoctoral research fellow at the Reuters Institute and one of the authors of
the report and will help us understand more about how audiences value local news,
including what news topics drive audiences to local outlets and what alternative sources of local information people are turning to.
And welcome and thank you for being with us today. Hello, Fredricka.
Thanks for having me. So local and regional news media have been under immense financial pressure in recent years,
local newspapers in particular have been hit hard by a disruption to both consumer behaviour and business models.
And the pandemic has only increased the pressure.
And this is troubling because local and regional news media can play a critical role in informing citizens and underpinning democratic processes.
As we've seen the value of a return to a service generally, specifically on local news during the pandemic.
And you dedicated a chapter in the report to local news and looked at what topics matter
most to audiences today and where they think they get the best information on each of them.
Broadly speaking, what do people want to know when it comes to local news?
What information about the area they live in? People actually care about?
Yes, so we asked our respondents which local topics they had access in the week ahead of taking the survey,
and we offered them a list of 15 topics to pick from and out of this list.
Two topics were accessed, most across countries.
That was the weather and also local information about coronavirus or how much the pandemic had affected the area.
So around half across our sample set, they had access to either of these.
For all other topics out of that list of 15, the self reported access rates were much, much lower than that.
So local politics just to pick that one out, which ranged third in many countries,
only around 30 percent of those who we've asked across markets set to have access to it in the week ahead of the survey.
So respondents didn't really seem to care so much about all of the other topics that we had listed.
Crime being exposed quite a bit in a few countries where this is sort of more of an issue, if you will.
But information on the local economy or even schools and education when exposed by more than a fourth or fifth in our whole sample,
this is quite striking. I would say also, if we compare this to last year's digital news report survey,
we found that many actually say they are very are extremely interested in local news more generally.
But when asked about what types of local information people have actually access, these figures are much, much lower.
So so there's sort of this interesting differences, difference between people's abstract interest and then they're basically practical engagement.
You mentioned different countries had a bit of a different result.
Can you tell us more about some of this? How much how many of these findings are consistent across countries and how much they vary?
We find quite a lot of variation between countries indeed. So even if we just compare amongst European countries, we see some notable differences.
So we have Norway, for example, which I will refer to quite often in this case,
probably where people are relatively interested in a range of different local topics,
taking out local politics as an example, again,
43 percent of our respondents in Norway said to have access information about their local government in the week ahead of the survey.
And although this is still below half, which we which we also have to acknowledge.
But if you compare this to the U.K.,
only 17 percent said to have access local political information so that that number in the U.K. appears really quite small compared to to Norway here.
Decir, you're also able to look at how a sense of attachment to one's local community influences the local news consumption.
What did you find out? Well, that's a very interesting topic.
So if you feel connected to your local community in whichever way, whatever that means to you,
you will also be like more likely to be interested in following local news.
And this has been shown to be true in previous research on the individual level, in the way that I've just described.
And with our country data, we can show that this also translates to the aggregate level.
So in other words, in countries where we find higher levels of community attachment across the sample,
people will also report people in that country will also report higher access rates of local topics on average.
This in itself probably isn't too surprising, but it does make an interesting point about how local news in some markets might
actually have it harder to create interest in their outlet and in their news provision.
So when you are a news organisation that tries to operate in a market with generally lower levels of community attachment,
it will be more difficult to get people reading it compared to when you work in
a market where people feel somewhat or more strongly connected to the area.
And they might also then also just want to know more about what is going on and seek out local news more frequently.
And you can if you want to, you can think about this as an as a sort of opportunity structure that that can help local news businesses to begin with.
But just the final note on that,
I think it's also important to recognise that we're talking about what I would refer to as an interdependency here, where, of course,
community attachment can to some extent drive local news access,
but where a well built local news business can also create community attachment over time.
But indeed, I think in countries where where we have cultures where where someone's roots,
so to say, are more important than just to offer a comparison,
that then being very cosmopolitan, so to say, it will be harder for local news to to build a strong business.
News organisations that provide local news also have several competitors to the service they provide, so to speak, could be social media,
specialised Web site and apps offering weather forecasting, for example, and local authorities, businesses, politician.
Many of these provide regular news of their own on local issues using their own website and social media pages.
What did you find out about what alternative sources of local information people are turning to?
Yes, so we asked our respondents which sources of local news they think are best for
each of the different local topics that they had selected in the beginning.
So amongst those amongst amongst these sources were traditional local sources like the newspaper, local TV,
but also all of these alternative alternative providers that you've just mentioned, like social media or also search engines.
What we see is that for no topic, there is a single source that comes out as strong.
So even for local politics, the local economy, our sample is basically split in half.
So around 60 percent say that the traditional local news sources are the best source for getting information about local politics.
What leads 40 percent saying to they prefer search, social media, other websites or,
as you said, local politicians or governments direct communication with coronaviruses?
It is pretty exactly 50/50, 50 traditional, 50 non-traditional.
And a majority then prefers to rely on social media and search when it comes to finding local jobs,
housing opportunities or information on shops and restaurants. So this is where local where the where the local newspaper,
radio and local television really have started to lose that battle against these alternatives.
Once again, I'm curious and maybe our listeners will be, too.
What kind of differences have you seen country by country?
Yeah, so we have some markets where things still look pretty good for traditional local media, as again,
I'm referring to Norway as an example where the local newspaper is still considered the best source for for local politics,
with 71 percent actually of our respondents saying they go to the local newspaper as the best source for this type of information.
In Germany, it's 48 drop below the half that say it's the local newspaper for them.
And then another 25 percent say in Germany it's TV or radio.
So there is this majority that still refers to traditional local news sources,
sort of hard news topics in the U.S. It is often local television that comes out is really strong,
with 30 around 30 percent saying it is the best source for local politics and only 24 percent going to the newspaper.
But still, as I said, overall, it's traditional sources that are dominant here compared to social and search.
And but then things look pretty, pretty difficult for for these traditional sources,
for example, in the United Kingdom or also Japan, just to name another example for ones.
Also, it's also important here, I think, to keep in mind these these low access rates that we spoke about earlier,
just to reiterate in the U.K. is only 17 percent told us that they had access to local politics.
And of these 17 percent,
only 30 percent say that the local newspaper is the best source for that topic compared with just to give you an example of non-operative providers,
compared with 33 percent who go to find local political information anywhere else online, including search and social.
Lastly, based on the research and your experience of working on this topic for a few years now,
this is such a complex, of course, context for local news,
also due to the small markets and willingness to pay by audiences where it's very
difficult to build a sustainable models based on your research and experience.
What should local news outlet,
who really wants to stand out from this many alternative sources of information should focus on super, super difficult question.
I think what I can say is that what we see in this data is what we also referred to in the report as the unbundling of local news.
So while especially the local newspaper had traditionally performed many jobs for readers, and they still do, of course,
and many users and are in many countries in our survey now find that other sources are better able to perform these these jobs.
So against this backdrop,
I think it will be very hard for local media to maybe even if not impossible actually to to drive demand for their product via these sort of topics.
So what they are left with to monetise their businesses on are only these few topics like local politics,
health issues, the local economy, local businesses.
So a way forward could be to double down on this rather than trying to provide information on all topics and in this sense,
try and channel the resources that they have. But of course, none of this will be easy in the current financial environment.
But I think it's critically important to avoid a situation where local governments and local politicians are not subject to scrutiny from local media.
So why? I think this might be less of an issue that the local paper is no longer considered
the best source for the whether it will be crucial for local journalism and also,
of course, local communities around the world not to lose the battle over political information.
Thanks. A very important point and thank you for joining us. Thank you, Fredricka.
It's been a pleasure. Thank you for everyone for listening to the fourth episode of Digital News Report.
Twenty twenty one podcast series.
Our guest today was Dr. Anshul, postdoctoral research fellow at the Reuters Institute and one of the co-authors of the digital news report.
In the next episode will talk about what the public thinks about financing of the commercial news media.
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You can find a report online and digital news reports dot org slash twenty twenty one.
This was Feature of Journalism, a podcast by the Reuters Institute. I'm Fredricka Cherubini and we'll be back soon.