Survey: 26 pct of Americans get news via phone

Mar 1, 2010 - NEW YORK – Just over a quarter of American adults now read news on their cell phones, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

The survey results being released by the group Monday offer another sign of how people are changing they way they get information. Technology has been reshaping the news business and the way consumers relate to it for more than a decade. The latest shift is being driven by the exploding popularity of phones that can easily access the Internet.

The new study found that 26 percent of Americans get news on their phones. Pew doesn't have comparable data for say, two or three years ago. But evidence of the shift in habits can be seen in this finding: Younger cell phone owners are more likely to look for news on their phones. About 43 percent of those under 50 said they are mobile news consumers, compared with 15 percent of older respondents.

Still, some things don't change. Readers' No. 1 concern when they look for news on their phones: the weather. Of the 37 percent of cell phone owners who said they use the Internet on their phone, 72 percent said they check weather reports. Current events came in second with 68 percent.

Pew's survey offered a wide range of statistics on people's news habits. It showed people are not relying on one medium. Just shy of 60 percent of respondents get news from both online and offline sources. And 46 percent said they use four to six different types of media on a typical day.

The Web is also helping to turn the news into more of a social experience: More than 80 percent of respondents get or receive news via e-mailed links.

The results were based on telephone interviews with 2,259 people over the age of 18, conducted between Dec. 28 and Jan. 19. For questions to that entire group, the margin of error was 2.3 percentage points. On questions to just Internet users, the margin was 2.7 percentage points.

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Consumers Graze News Online Ahead of Newspapers

Mar 1, 2010 - The Internet is gaining momentum among news consumers -- but 92 percent of Americans use multiple platforms to get their daily fix of news, sports and weather. So says a new survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The survey found the Internet is the third most popular news platform, behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers, and radio. Reading news online fits into a broad pattern of news consumption by Americans, the survey reported, with 59 percent getting news from a combination of online and off-line sources on a typical day.

"People are not replacing traditional media sources with the Internet -- at least not right now," said Kristin Purcell, an associate director for research at the Pew project. "The Internet is just another platform they turn to. People use the combination of platforms that's available and convenient for them."

Portable, Personalized, Participatory

According to the survey, the Internet and mobile technologies offer strong signals about how people's relationship to news is changing. In today's multi-platform media environment, for example, news is becoming portable, personalized and participatory.

Specifically, 33 percent of cell-phone owners now access news on their cell phones. What's more, 28 percent of Internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them, and 37 percent of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social-media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

The survey also reveals that people use their social networks and social-networking technology to filter, assess and react to news. They rely on traditional e-mail and other tools to swap stories and comment on them. Among those who get news online, 75 percent get news forwarded through e-mail or posts on social-networking sites and 52 percent share links to news with others via those means.

"The takeaway for the news industry is to understand that the core news consumer likes a participatory experience and gravitates toward sites that provide it," Purcell said. "The highest-ranking features are interactive tools, like links to related material and the ability to easily share the content."

Slim Online News Pickings

Despite all this online activity, the typical online news consumer routinely uses just a handful of news sites and doesn't have a particular favorite, the survey found. Most use between two and five online sources to access news on a regular basis -- and two-thirds do not have a favorite.

"People like to go to sites where they can get a lot of news about a lot of different topics in one place. The most popular online news sites are news aggregators and the sites of major news organizations like CNN and Fox News," Purcell said. "Consumers tend toward sites where they can graze the news."

Finally, Americans report mixed feelings about this "new" news environment. Fifty-five percent say it's easier to keep up with news and information today than it was five years ago, but 70 percent feel the amount of news and information available from different sources is overwhelming.

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Military allows Twitter, other social media

Mar 1, 2010 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon announced on Friday it has authorized the use Twitter, Facebook and other so-called "Web 2.0" sites across the U.S. military, saying the benefits of social media outweighed security concerns.

The decision, which comes at a time of growing concern over cyber-security, applies only to the military's non-classified network.

But it could mean big changes for large portions of the armed forces, including the Marines, which had selectively banned social media on work computers.

The Department of Defense also had bans in place since 2007 on accessing certain bandwidth-gobbling Web sites like YouTube on its network.

"The purpose of the policy is to recognize that we need to take advantage of these Internet-based capabilities. These Web 2.0 tools need to be part of what we use," David Wennergren, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told Reuters.

"And what we had were inconsistent approaches. Some websites were blocked and some commands were blocking things."

Social media are increasingly important for the U.S. military. Admiral Mike Mullen, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the top U.S. military officer, has a Twitter feed with more than 16,000 followers.

U.S. Southern Command offered operational updates via Twitter on relief activities in Haiti.

REACHING OUT TO YOUNG SOLDIERS

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, 66, has said that he wants to use social networking to help the Pentagon interact with U.S. military members, many of whom are in their early 20s.

But opponents have cited the risks of information leaks, of opening gateways to hackers, along with a potential overload of precious bandwidth on the Defense Department's network.

The new policy says commanders will still need to defend against cyber-attacks and block access to online pornography, gambling and sites promoting "hate-crime related activities."

It also allows commanders to temporarily limit Internet access if the bandwidth is overwhelmed, a key caveat for U.S. forces fighting the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, or stationed in remote, rugged places around the globe.

Wennergren said commanders still had authority to limit access to safeguard missions, perhaps banning use of social media ahead of a major offensive. The Defense Department will also be monitoring use of its network.

"There are two imperatives. One is the ability to share information. The other is about security -- we need to be good at both," he said.

Training people so they know what can and cannot be disclosed on the Internet is a more effective policy than simply banning use of social media on work computers, he said.

"You can't just have the policy be that you're going to block access to MySpace. Because there are 10,000 ways people could still compromise a mission -- by making a phone call, or sending an email," Wennergren said.

"So part of this is about having a trained workforce that is savvy in how you operate in the information age."

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

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