Social Media Seen as Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, But U.S. is a Major Outlier
Most think social media has made it easier to manipulate and divide people, but they also say it informs and raises awareness.
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Most think social media has made it easier to manipulate and divide people, but they also say it informs and raises awareness.
With Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid now officially underway, here are key facts about Truth Social and its users.
While 38% of U.S. adults say they have heard of Parler, just 1% of Americans regularly get news there.
In 2021, 11% of high-circulation newspapers experienced layoffs, compared with three times that share the year before (33%).
In recent years, several new options have emerged in the social media universe, many of which explicitly present themselves as alternatives to more established social media platforms. Free speech ideals and heated political themes prevail on these sites, which draw praise from their users and skepticism from other Americans.
41% of U.S. journalists who are employed at least part time at a news outlet say they would join a union if it were available to them.
55% of journalists surveyed say that every side does not always deserve equal coverage in the news. 22% of Americans overall say the same.
The social media sites that journalists use most frequently for their jobs differ from those that the public turns to for news.
Nearly 12,000 U.S.-based journalists in a pair of open-ended questions were asked to write down the one thing the news industry does the best job of these days and what it does worst.
A survey of U.S.-based journalists finds 77% would choose their career all over again, though 57% are highly concerned about future restrictions on press freedom.
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