Americans still prefer watching the news rather than reading or listening to it, and their viewing loyalties have yet to migrate fully to the digital realm, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
The survey, which polled U.S. adults on their news consumption habits, found that about half (47 percent) of Americans still prefer watching the news as opposed to reading or listening to it, while about a third (34 percent) opt to read the news and about one-in-five (19 percent) still prefer listening to it.
And despite the recent outcrop of online news outlets, an overwhelming majority of those who said they prefer watching the news (75 percent) cited television as their preferred medium for doing so, while 20 percent of watchers chose the web.
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On the other hand, a majority of those who said they prefer to read their news now primarily use the web to do so (63 percent), while only 17 percent still prefer a print product. More than half of those who prefer listening to the news named radio as their top choice (52 percent), while 21 percent named television and 20 percent listed the web.
In addition to determining whether Americans preferred watching, listening or reading the news, the study also asked which platform respondents preferred to conduct this activity. About four-in-ten respondents (44 percent) said TV was their top medium, compared to a little more than a third (34 percent) who said they preferred the Internet, 14 percent who preferred radio and seven percent who preferred print.
Of the one-in-five respondents who cited the Internet as their preferred news medium, adults younger than 50 were three times more likely to prefer getting their news online than those ages 50 and older. The study also found that more than three-quarters (76 percent) of those ages 18 to 49 who prefer reading the news favored the web for doing so, compared to 43 percent of those 50 and older.
The Pew Research Center survey polled more than 3,400 U.S. adults between July and August.
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