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Key findings

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Social media

More than half of all online users across the 36 countries (54%) say they use social media as a source of news each week but this ranges from 76% in Chile to 29% in Japan and Germany.

More than one in ten (14%) now say social media is their main source

Read more on how people discover news online

Fake news

Only a quarter (24%) of survey respondents think social media does a good job in separating fact from fiction, compared to 40% for the news media.

In countries like the US (20%/38%), and the UK (18%/41%), people are twice as likely to have faith in the news media

Read more on fake news

Ad blocking

Ad blocking has stopped growing and is still largely confined to desktop. Across all countries 24% use them regularly, 7% on mobile.

Almost half (43%) of those had agreed to temporarily turn off
 their ad-blocker for particular news sites in the last year.

Read more on ad blocking in overview section

There has been a surge in the numbers prepared to pay for online news in the United States, growing from 9% to 16% along with a tripling of news donations.

Most of the new payments have come from the young (u35s) and those on the political left with almost a third saying they want to ‘help fund journalism’

Read more on paying for news

Interactive

Comment & analysis

Following Politicians in Social Media

Antonis Kalogeropoulos looks at how many people follow politicians in social media across six countries and asks what the motivations are for following politicians directly in this way

About us

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report aims to deliver useful and timely data about the transition to digital. Read more about our annual survey ...

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Resources

You can view or download a Powerpoint presentation of all of the charts and tables in the 2017 report.

Read more on our resources