ACJ collaborated with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), on the Digital News Report, 2023 released on June 14, 2023
The Asian College of Journalism collaborated with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), on the Digital News Report, 2023 released on June 14, 2023. The 12th edition of the report features India for the third successive year.
This year’s report looks at, among other topics, news consumption habits of consumers across 46 markets, along with declining interest and trust in news, news avoidance and declining engagement with news, and the changing nature of social media platforms for a younger audience.
The Asian College of Journalism provided support in identifying news brands and other specific details relevant for the Indian market in the survey questionnaire, verifying Hindi translation of the questionnaire, and contextualising the main findings for India in its country profile.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: INDIA
In India, there was a general decline in overall consumption and sharing of news compared to last year with a sharp decrease in access to online news (- 12 pp), particularly through social media (decrease by 11 pp). Television also saw a 10pp decline as a news source. Only 47% of the survey respondents shared news online compared to 60% in 2022.
India also registered a small decrease of 3 pp (38%) in overall trust in news compared to last year, and was ranked 24th among 46 countries. Finland remained the country with the highest levels of overall trust in news (69%) while Greece had the lowest levels of trust (19%), globally.
Among individual news brands, public broadcasters like DD India, All India Radio, and BBC News retained high levels of trust among survey respondents in India, emphasising the importance of public service media.
YouTube was the most preferred social media platform for news with 56% of the respondents accessing it, emphasising the importance of video-based content in news, especially for a younger audience. WhatsApp (47%) and Facebook (39%) were the next two preferred social media platforms for news among our survey respondents.
This year’s survey included select regional language news brands in an effort to capture the diversity of the Indian media market and to understand the preference for news in regional languages among English news users. Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi daily, featured among the top ten brands accessed both online and offline by the survey respondents.
The respondents for India are mainly English-speaking, online news users leaning generally towards a more affluent, younger, educated, and city-dwelling population. They represent a small portion of a diverse and vibrant media market in the country. Therefore, the findings should not be taken to be nationally representative.
For more information, read the full report here: