A digital environment is currently an extremely important component in how Americans learn about events in your area and issues in the news. Today, almost as many U.S. adults say they prefer to get their local news through the internet as prefer to do so from the tv.

Chart showing make fish an overwhelming most Americans reach least some local news online.

Specifically, when asked which pathways they like to use for local news – the tv set, the world wide web (either through social networking or websites/apps), print or radio – nearly the identical percentage of U.S. adults say they prefer an internet method (37% total, including 23% who favor news websites or apps and 15% who name social networking) as say they prefer television (41%). Far fewer prefer print newspapers (13%) or radio (8%). This close split between TV and internet-based pathways tracks closely with how Americans access news more generally.

Beyond digital is the preferred pathway, 89% of Americans reach least some local news digitally leading to four-in-ten (41%) do so often. This stops working to about equal shares who frequently get local news specifically from social media (25%) and internet based news websites or mobile apps (26%).

Whilst TV stations certainly are a powerhouse source for local news, these are still accessed primarily over the analog format of televisions; this is also true of radio news stations. Fully 76% of those people who get news from local Tv producers and 81% of those who get news from r / c primarily head to these providers with the traditional pathway.

But other news providers have a very substantial part of their audience who access them online. Among those who get local news from daily newspapers, for example, 43% primarily access them online while 54% buy them mainly inside a print format. And up to 50 % of people who get local news from newsletters or listservs (49%) accomplish that primarily online.

Chart showing that few Americans are digital-only or analog-only with regards to local news.

As well, few Americans are fully analog or fully digital in terms they get local news. Instead, most (68%) mix offline and online pathways, as an example, flipping on the TV set to look at their local news station but going on line to see the daily newspaper and neighborhood listserv.

Just 7% of Americans indicate which they exclusively use digital pathways as their primary access points. 3 x as many U.S. adults (21%) mainly access all providers they get news from via an analog pathway – though this really is still also a clear minority.

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