Digital Information Ecosystems

6 Are There Dangerous Links between Media and Social Networks?

Je t’aime, moi non plus… “I love you, me neither” – this could reflect the love/hate relationship between the media and social networks.

6.1 The indispensable social networks

Social networks have become essential for information. According to the Digital News Report 2017 (Newman et al. 2017) study published by the Reuters Institute Study for Journalism, 51% of U.S. residents use social networks to access information, 5 points more than the previous year and almost twice as many as in 2013. However, this does not mean that they are totally neglecting other media: only 2% solely use social networks.

Among young people, the trend is even bigger. Across all countries, one third of 18–24 year olds report that social networks are now their primary source of information. In this age group of millennials, social networks (33%) are ahead of television (24%) as the primary source of information. The phenomenon tends to be generational given that, conversely, among those over 55 years of age, the percentage is only 7%.

It is striking to note that only 5% of 18–24 year olds indicate that the press is their primary source of information (compared to 11% of those over 55).

The Reuters study also looked at algorithms and shows that readers are primarily faced with selections made by robots (whether in social networks or search engines, etc.) rather than by a human (e-mail, mobile notification, etc.): 54% of respondents said they ...