Kelly White
17 June 2024: Findings from the Digital News Report (DNR): Australia 2024, released today by the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre (N&MRC), show that journalists are working in an increasingly challenging media environment, thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and algorithms causing widespread unease.
The findings show Australian’s reliance on social media as a source of news is growing. While television remains the most popular news source in 2024, its popularity declined to 56 per cent, while the use of social media for news jumped to 49 per cent.
Broken down by audience age demographics, this statistic becomes even more stark, as nearly two-thirds (60 per cent) of Gen Z report relying on social media as their main source of news – a significant increase of 17 percentage points (pp) since last year. Whereas other generations are more likely to use a mix of news apps, online websites and television.
Professorial Fellow and Lead Author on the Report, Professor Sora Park, said that with the prevalence of social media and increasing sophistication of AI, audiences are growing more concerned about misinformation.
“With the proliferation of social media, concern about misinformation skyrocketed to 75 per cent, up 11 percentage points since 2022,” Professor Park said.
“Australians encountered most cases of misinformation about topics such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, national politics and climate change.
“It’s notable that audiences say it is easier to identify trustworthy news on platforms with an established presence of news brands and clear labelling.”
The findings show that when it comes to sorting fact from fiction, audiences find it hardest to identify misinformation on platforms such as TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter), but easier on Google, Facebook and YouTube.
These findings reflect a new normal for journalists, who must contend with volatile and secretive social media algorithms, steadily increasing distrust among the public, and who must translate their work into a variety of formats to meet the public need.
In March of this year, Meta, the US-based multinational owner of both Facebook and Instagram, announced it would not renew its funding agreements with local news producers through the Australian Government’s News Media Bargaining Code, and would deprioritise news for Australian users of its platforms.
Evidence shows that while this approach may reroute users from established outlets, it will not eliminate the work of journalists being shared on these platforms – findings from DNR: Canada 2024 show how this ban may impact Australia.
“In Canada, which introduced the Online News Act in June last year, we have seen a dramatic fall in the use of Facebook for news, down from 41 to 25 per cent in that period,” Professor Park said.
“However, 25 per cent of Canadian news consumers say they are still accessing some type of news via the app. While links to Canadian news sites cannot be posted, their work is still being shared informally. We’re seeing workarounds pop up, including screenshots from news articles.”
Where mainstream news brands aren’t present, other producers inevitably fill the gap. On X, the use of mainstream news has fallen to 49 per cent (-13pp), and news from ordinary people has risen (47 per cent, +10pp).
In some groups there has been a rise in Australians saying they increasingly use ordinary people as a source of news. This is particularly the case for young people on TikTok and Instagram.
AI has proven a divisive topic in the news in 2024, as the emergence of increasingly sophisticated products leads to concern around the origins and veracity of the information in the content we encounter.
Data shows that Australians are much less comfortable with AI-generated news (59 per cent) than audiences in other parts of the world (45 per cent).
Importantly, there is nuance in their response, providing journalists with a window of opportunity to build trust among news consumers.
“Audiences want news organisations to be transparent about how they produce news and the role that AI plays in this,” Professor Park said.
“People are more at ease with journalism produced mainly by humans with AI assistance, than journalism primarily created by AI with human oversight.
“This points to an opportunity for news businesses to increase their transparency about the use of AI in their news production, to help boost levels of media literacy and trust.”
News consumers’ familiarity with AI is correlated with their comfort with its use. The topic of news also influences audience’s comfort – the findings show that Australians are more relaxed about AI’s use in the production of sport and lifestyle news, but particularly uncomfortable about it being used to produce news about politics.
The Digital News Report: Australia 2024 paints a picture of a complex media landscape, with further breakdowns of the rich data around news consumption habits and preferences available across male and female, young and old, low and highly educated, and city and regional audiences.
You can access the full Digital News Report: Australia 2024 here.
The News and Media Research Centre has released a series of podcasts, providing a deep dive into the findings of DNR: Australia 2024. You can access the podcasts here.
