Digital News project
I am co-principal investigator on the Digital News project.
Since 2015 the Digital News project has studied how journalism, news, and media are developing in the digital age.
The main output is the Digital News Report. The Digital News Report is the world’s largest ongoing study of news use. It is based on a survey of news audiences in 46 markets across the globe, with the findings published every year.
The 2022 report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 90,000 people across 46 media markets.
I also use the data from the Digital News Report survey to underpin academic research articles, which are listed below.
Project website: Digital News project.
Richard Fletcher
Director of Research
Director of Research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.
Publications
Comparing the Platformization of News Media Systems: A Cross-Country Analysis
Platformization has been used to describe how platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, WhatsApp and TikTok have become increasingly …
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023
The twelfth Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford reveals new insights …
The Role of News Media Knowledge For How People Use Social Media For News in Five Countries
Concern over misinformation on social media has amplified calls to improve the public’s knowledge about how news is produced, …
Concentration of Online News Traffic and Publishers' Reliance on Platform Referrals: Evidence From Passive Tracking Data in the UK
Attention to online news is highly concentrated and increasingly shaped by platforms including search engines, social media, and …
The Watchdog Press in the Doghouse: A Comparative Study of Attitudes about Accountability Journalism, Trust in News, and News Avoidance
The watchdog role has been one of the most widely discussed normative functions of the press. In this study, we examine the public’s …
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022
The eleventh Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford reveals new …
How Many People Live in Politically Partisan Online News Echo Chambers in Different Countries?
Concern over online news echo chambers has been a consistent theme in recent debates on how people get news and information. Yet, we …
More Diverse, More Politically Varied: How Social Media, Search Engines and Aggregators Shape News Repertoires in the United Kingdom
There is still much to learn about how the rise of new, ‘distributed’, forms of news access through search engines, social media and …
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021
The tenth Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford reveals new insights …
How News Audiences Think About Misinformation Across the World
In this chapter, Richard Fletcher examines some of the key findings from the 2018 Reuters Institute Digital News Report. This report …
Democratic Creative Destruction? The Effect of a Changing Media Landscape on Democracy
The move to a more digital, more mobile, and more platform-dominated media environment represents a change to the institutions and …
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020
The ninth Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford reveals new insights …
Are Netflix and Spotify Subscribers More Likely to Pay for Online News? Comparative Analysis of Data from Six Countries
As news publishers search for business models that can sustain professional journalism, other online media companies (eg, Netflix and …
Polarization and Partisanship: Key Drivers of Distrust in Media Old and New?
Some worry that increased partisanship is lowering trust in the news media, as people increasingly come into contact with cross-cutting …
Crowding Out: Is there Evidence that Public Service Media Harm Markets? A Cross-National Comparative Analysis of Commercial Television and Online News Providers
The impact of public service media (PSM) on media competition has become a topic of debate in many European countries. Some argue that …
A Mile Wide, an Inch Deep: Online News and Media Use in the 2019 UK General Election
This report presents the most detailed and comprehensive analysis to date of news use during the 2019 UK General Election. It is based …
How Polarized are Online and Offline News Audiences? A Comparative Analysis of Twelve Countries
Polarization is a key area of interest for media and communication scholars. We develop a way of measuring how polarized news audience …
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019
The eighth Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford reveals that public …
Consumptive News Feed Curation on Social Media as Proactive Personalization: A Study of Six East Asian Markets
Social media platforms allow people to exert some control over their news feeds, even though not everyone utilizes the relevant …
News Brand Attribution in Distributed Environments: Do People Know Where They Get Their News?
The digital media environment is increasingly characterized by distributed discovery, where media users find content produced by news …
Automated Serendipity: The Effect of Using Search Engines on News Repertoire Diversity and Balance
Search engines are an absolutely central part of the web. Yet we know relatively little about how they shape news consumption. In this …
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018
The seventh Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford contains a wealth of …
Generalised Scepticism: How People Navigate News on Social Media
Social media is an increasingly widely used and important source of news. News on social media is ‘selected’ by a variety of actors, …
Bias, Bullshit and Lies: Audience Perspectives on Low Trust in the Media
Even in a world where people increasingly get news from social media, the professional news media is still seen as largely to blame for …
Are People Incidentally Exposed to News on Social Media? A Comparative Analysis
Scholars have questioned the potential for incidental exposure in high-choice media environments. We use online survey data to examine …
Are News Audiences Increasingly Fragmented? A Cross‐National Comparative Analysis of Cross‐Platform News Audience Fragmentation and Duplication
The move to high-choice media environments has sparked fears over audience fragmentation. We analyze news audiences across media …
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017
The sixth Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford reveals high levels …
The Impact of Trust in the News Media on Online News Consumption and Participation
Trust has long been considered an important factor that influences people’s relationship with news. However, the increase in the volume …
Paying for Online News: A Comparative Analysis of Six Countries
Private news media across the world are trying to develop pay models for news. Our understanding of what drives behaviour and attitudes …
