Social Media Almost Top Media Platform for Readers

How do you get your daily news?

According to Mashable's Stan Schroeder, social media is changing the way users get their news. In a study by Pew Internet, 75 percent of 2,259 polled adults admit to getting their news by emails or posts on social networking sites.

However, the high percentage was to be expected. What's shocking is the 59 percent of those surveyed that get their daily news through a combination of online and offline media.

With numerous ways to get news via online sites, it's interesting to wonder how a somewhat large number of readers still get news from offline media, when print media is supposedly dying.

Still, the study also shows that only 7 percent of those polled get their news through a single platform, while a whopping 46 percent get their news from four to six media platforms each day.

Some other ways they got news were through radio, local newspapers, national newspapers, and from applications available for cell phones.

The lowest percentage was in regards to how many people still got news from national newspapers like the New York Times or USA Today. Only 17 percent of those polled admitted to reading news in national publications.

78 percent of those polled are said to get their news from a local TV station, making it the top media platform according to the survey. Still. social media sites still provide the second largest percentage of those polled with their daily news.

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"News Grazers" and Finding News Sources

For American consumers online news sites are third on the list for most popular sources of news behind local and national television news according to a new report from PEW Research Center's Internet and American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Statistics show that around six in 10 American adults get their news online on an ordinary day and around 71 percent of adults receive their news online occasionally. However, national and local print newspapers and radio all fall behind online news.

But the most staggering statistic showed that over 92 percent of Americans receive their daily news from multiple sources. On the other hand only seven percent of Americans get their daily news from a single media source, usually either Internet or local television news.

The term 'News Grazers' refers to the 92 percent of American Adults who find their news from multiple sources. To help along this growing trend Web sites such as Google News, AOL, and Topix have now become the most commonly used online news sources. Others include CNN, BBC and local or national newspapers.

Also pushing this trend along is the growing usage of mobile technology. Now news has become more portable, personalized and participatory. 33 percent of smart phone owners now access news on their cellphones and 28 percent have customized their home pages to include news from multiple sources that interest them.

Along with grazing news outlets, American news consumers are contributing to the creation of news, commenting, or disseminating it through postings on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. According to the study over 37 percent of users have become more interactive news consumers.

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Newspapers Dying in East

China Daily has a strategy to boost its presence at home and abroad. To increase the number of readers METRO Beijing is reprinting itself with more pages and reporting.

To this point the newspaper business in China has been flourishing while it is dying in the West. Beijing only has a foreign population of about 110,00 people but they are publishing half a dozen English newspapers and magazines.

The dying of the newspaper in the West is attributed to internet access, but with China seeming to flourish in print media will it be unaffected in the East? That does not seem to be the belief in China.

Their capital that used to be a battleground for many Chinese newspaper journalists. Now the entirety of the metropolitan media market is dominated by about four newspapers.

To make things worse for the print media their online foes are able to take and reprint their news online for little to no cost to the readers. Because of this the METRO Beijing is trying to improve its website to make it more accessible to the reader.

Many predict that by the year 2025 print media in the metropolitan area of China will be almost extinct and on "quality" newspapers will survive.

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Twitter Saves the Day

A women was able to track down her missing sister-in-law though the help of Twitter and a helpful stranger.

After the Chile Earthquake many people were missing family members and loved ones. Because power and phone lines were down in many areas around Santiago, Sheryl Brueker, a sister-in-law to a Chilean earthquake survivor, attempted to call, text, and e-mail Maria Alica Moya.

"Any info on Maria Alica Moya, please update http://tinyurl.com/yfjtzed or contact @kencamp or @sherylbreuker ASAP #chile #quake," was one of her frantic tweets to find her lost sister.

She was contacted several hours later by a stranger who lived in that area. Through Twitter correspondence the man went to the address that Brueker had given him for her sister-in-laws place of residence. The man went to look for the lost wife and sister-n-law.

"found her she is OK... she told me to tell Twinkie to stay cool, she is fine," within two hours Brueker received a Direct Message on Twitter from the man.

"I am so thankful for social media, grateful to the power of networking and beyond ecstatic my sister-in-law was safe and her home intact." wrote Breuker. This amazing story really illustrates the power of social networks in crisis situation. They can provide communication when other modes of communication can not.

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