The dramatic increase in recent years of the use of smartphones and tablets to access online news could lead to an uncertain future for the world’s traditional media and news organizations, says the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ)…reports Asian Lite.
According to a study done by the Thompsun Reuters Foundation many news outlets are struggling to profit from smartphone content as more people discover news through search engines and social media rather than the front page of a news website, an RISJ survey has found.
The RISJ said in its annual Digital News Report, online advertising revenues are falling as smartphone users, who spend half of the time on their devices reading news, become increasingly frustrated by advertisements and so-called sponsored content,
RISJ Director of Research Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, said “Most people like news and use news, but they don’t want to pay for it, don’t want to see advertising around it, and don’t want to see it mixed up with sponsored content.” “This means sustainable business models remain elusive even for those who succeed in building an audience,” Nielsen added.
Only the most loyal smartphone users are using news apps, as others rely on social media, messaging apps, email and mobile notifications to read online news, the RISJ study added.
While more than two-thirds of smartphone users have downloaded news apps, only one-third use them on a weekly basis.
Four in 10 smartphone customers use Facebook to find, read, watch, share and comment on the news each week – more than twice the usage of its nearest rival, Youtube, and almost four times that of Twitter, the RISJ said.
Newer networks such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Snapchat also showed the growing importance of social platforms worldwide, the report said.
Although most smartphone users praised social media for bringing them stories they would not have seen otherwise, they said they had reservations about the accuracy and reliability of news found in this manner, RISJ said.
As smartphone users become increasingly dissatisfied with
pop-up advertisements and banners, more than four in 10 in the United States and Britain regularly turn to ad-blocking software, the report found.