TikTok makes notable gains in US

Islamabad: A new study by the Pew Research Center revealed a notable increase in the proportion of TikTok users accessing news regularly, rising from 22% in the previous year to 43% in 2023 in the United States. This shift underscores the growing competition among news organizations for attention and advertising budgets on TikTok and other social media platforms, particularly targeting the sizable and sought-after Gen Z audience.

The study, based on a survey of 8,842 U.S. adults conducted from September 25 to October 1, 2023, highlights that 50% of U.S. adults derive at least some news from social media.

Among the various platforms, Meta-owned Facebook emerges as the primary choice for news consumption, with 30% of Americans regularly accessing news there. YouTube follows with 26%, Instagram with 16%, and TikTok with 14%.

Interestingly, despite Meta’s efforts to diminish the prevalence of news on its platforms, news consumption on Facebook persists.

The analysis also identifies demographic trends, revealing that women are more likely to be regular news consumers on Nextdoor, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, while men dominate as regular news consumers on Reddit, X, LinkedIn, and Alphabet-owned YouTube.

In the realm of Elon Musk’s platform X (formerly Twitter), regular news consumers are politically diverse, with approximately 46% identifying as Republican or Republican-leaning and 49% as Democrat or Democratic-leaning, according to Pew’s findings.