The lines between media channels in the 21st century have become increasingly blurred, according to the third annual Media Myths & Realities survey from Ketchum and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center.
The survey compares the media usage habits of 1,000 adult Americans (including 200 influential citizens, or ‘influencers’ – the 10% to 15% of the population who initiate changes in their community or society through a variety of activities) and 500 communications industry professionals.
The study found that consumers in the US are using a wider variety of channels than ever before. Newer channels, such as blogs and social networking sites, are gaining more and more traction. The survey found that 26% of consumers use social networking sites, compared to 17% in 2006. The usage of blogs nearly doubled from 13% in 2006 to 24% in 2008.
This is especially true among influential consumers – the 10% to 15% of the population who initiate change in their communities – of which 43% read blogs by non-journalists (compared to 16% of the general population) and 32% read blogs written by journalists (8% of the general population).
Conversely, the use of more established media channels continues to wane. The survey revealed that 65% of consumers use major network television news as a source of information (down from 71% in 2006). Local television news saw a sharper drop – 62% in 2008 compared to 74% in 2006.
The use of search engines has remained steady over the last year – 59% of consumers use them regularly (compared to 60% in 2007). In addition, consumers awarded search engines a credibility score of 7.0 (on a 10-point scale), up from 6.5 in 2007.
In the US, 70% of influencers use search engines to gather information, which ranks third in a list of most-used sources of information, after local newspapers (74% of influencers) and major network television news (72% of influencers).
Recent figures from Hitwise revealed that Google accounted for 71.97% of all US internet searches conducted in the four weeks ending Nov 29, 2008 (see Google accounts for 72% of US internet searches in November 2008).
The Media Myths & Realities survey also found that consumers in the UK read national newspapers at nearly three times the rate of consumers in the US (53% compared to 18%) while Brazilians are even higher, at 62%.
Deloitte’s Media Democracy survey, released at the start of the month, found that British consumers pay more attention to print ads rather than online ads (see Consumers pay more attention to print ads than online ads).
The study found that 59% of consumers pay the greatest attention to print ads in magazines, while 56% pay more attention to ads in newspapers compared to any type of advertising on the internet.
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