Social Media As A News Gateway [CHART]

Looking at the population as a whole, Facebook by far still leads every other social media site as a source of news. This is largely due to Facebook’s large user base, compared with other platforms, and the fact that most of its users get news on the site. Specifically, about two-thirds of Americans (66%) use Facebook, and a majority of those users get news on the site, similar to 2016. Looked at as a portion of all U.S. adults, this translates into just under half (45%) of Americans getting news on Facebook.

Even though YouTube has a large user base – 58% of the population – a smaller portion gets news there. In 2017, both the user base and the share getting news on YouTube grew. The result: 18% of all Americans now get news on YouTube, making it the second most common social media site for news – albeit still far behind Facebook.

Twitter has the reverse structure from YouTube: While a large share of its users get news on the site (74% say they do), its audience is significantly smaller overall. This means that overall, fewer Americans get news on Twitter (11% of U.S. adults). Read the rest at Pew Research.