A new survey reveals that one in 10 Americans consider Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) as a news outlet. But, Facebook wants to be a social networking company, not a media company.
According to the survey, nearly half of Americans cannot remember where they got their news when they saw it online, Recode reported.
The survey, involving 2,000 adults, was conducted by Pew in February 2016. The aim was to learn about how Americans intersect and engage with news online. Respondents were asked about news they encountered within the past two hours before being surveyed.
According to the survey, the most common ways for people to get online news are from a direct visit to the website of the news outlet (36%) and social media posts (35%). People are more likely to use a search engine to find news (20%) than open an email from a news outlet (15%), according to the report.
When asked to recall the name of the news outlet they read from, 56% of respondents were able to provide the name. But if the news was first encountered on social media, they were far less likely to know than if it came directly from the publisher.
“When it comes to engaging with the news — sharing it, deliberating it, learning more about the topic — respondents were far more likely to do so if it came from an email or text from friends or family or if they found the news themselves from a search engine. When the news came from a news outlet directly or was found on social media, the likelihood of engagement went down,” the Recode article reads.
Pew found that people like to share news about community affairs on social media. Also, people are more likely to engage with news shared by people they trust on topics that are locally relevant to their lives.