Decreases the proportion of Brazilians who avoid ‘depressing’ news – 06/14/2023 – Nelson de Sá

The new Digital Media Report by the Reuters Institute, a traditional worldwide study, shows that in Brazil the proportion of those who avoid negative news decreased by 13 percentage points in the last year, to 41% in 2023.

The previous year, the survey had pointed to a record 54% of Brazilians avoiding “depressing” information on topics such as Covid, inflation and war.

In the global picture, the institution, which heard 93,000 news consumers around the world, highlights that TikTok is the platform with the highest growth for information, now used by 20% of young people between 18 and 24 years old to get information.

Facebook is becoming “less relevant for news” on average across the 46 markets surveyed, with 28% of respondents saying they turn to the social network today versus 42% in 2016.

Change happens “especially in parts of the Global South”. The fall of Mark Zuckerberg’s platform as a protagonist for news, for example, was relevant in Brazil, where it dropped 12 percentage points in the last two years, to stand at 35% now.

Study coordinator, journalist and researcher Nic Newman says that “the change in nature of social media is impressive”, in general, not just for information, with the decline of traditional networks like Facebook and the advance of TikTok and other concentrated on video, including YouTube.

“Despite this growing fragmentation of channels and public disquiet over misinformation and algorithms, our reliance on these intermediaries for information continues to grow,” he reckons. Especially in “younger generations, who pay more attention to influencers and celebrities than journalists”.

In 2018, 32% of respondents said they get information directly on journalistic websites and apps, against 23% via social media. In 2023, the picture is almost the opposite, with 22% directly and 30% through networks. Another widely used tool is search, which has changed little: 24% in 2018, 25% now.

One data highlighted in the survey is that the acquisition of Twitter by entrepreneur Elon Musk did not change the reach of the platform, in general, remaining at 22%. Mastodon, a supposed competitor, “is not even registered in most markets and is only used by 2% in the US.”

For the director of the Reuters Institute, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, this year’s report “shows that the news industry around the world is now facing a more fundamental shift, driven by generations who have grown up and depend almost entirely on various digital media”.

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