The media landscape has been revolutionised in the last 15 years. Long gone are the days dominated by traditional print media, radio broadcasting and television news programs.
Modern society gets its news in modern ways. No longer are individuals crowding around television sets for the 6 pm nightly news or tuning into news radio on their work commutes.
These days, there are multiple ways for news to reach its intended audience. Traditional mediums remain, though they’re joined by digital media and online publications, social media and podcasting as ways individuals get their news in 2024.
Australians, particularly younger Australians, have sought their news from non-traditional mediums in recent years. While TV remains the nation’s most popular source of news, according to Statista, online news and social media have increasingly become news outlets in recent years.
Data from Statista revealed that 51% of Australians got their news from online publications, while 45% got their news from social media. Nearly double the amount of Australians getting their news from social media than from radio (24%), highlighting the news landscape’s shift in recent years.
Further to this, a 2023 study of over 1,000 Australians aged between eight and 16 conducted by the University of Western Sydney revealed an overwhelming majority of younger Australians get their news from social media.
Most of the UWS’s survey respondents shared TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram as the platforms they most often scoured for their news content.
Further to this, a survey from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that 46% of Australians aged 18-24 nominated social media as their primary source of news, with 31% of this group citing celebrities and influencers as sources of their news content.
ACMA’s study found social media was the only form of news consumption which has reported recent increases in people choosing it as their primary source of news and information.
On the flip side, amongst older Australians, traditional media remains the dominant supplier of news. According to ACMA, 52% of Australians aged 75 and over reported reading a newspaper in the week prior to the survey, compared with just 7% of Aussies aged 18 to 24.
