Digital environment is an extremely important component in how Americans find out about local events and issues in news bulletins. Today, nearly as many U.S. adults say they prefer to acquire their local news online as approach so from the television set.

Chart showing that the overwhelming most Americans get at least some local news online.

Specifically, when asked which pathways they like for local news – the telly set, the world wide web (either through social networking or websites/apps), print or radio – nearly the identical part of U.S. adults say they like an internet method (37% total, including 23% who favor news websites or apps and 15% who name social networking) as say they like 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 being the preferred pathway, 89% of Americans reach least some local news digitally leading to four-in-ten (41%) achieve this often. This in time breaks down to around equal shares who are often local news specifically from social media marketing (25%) and internet-based news websites or mobile phone applications (26%).

Even while Tv producers certainly are a powerhouse source for local news, they’re still accessed primarily with the analog format of tv sets; this is also true of radio news stations. Fully 76% of people who get news from local Tv producers and 81% of those people who get news from radio stations primarily visit these providers through the traditional pathway.

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

Chart showing that few Americans are digital-only or analog-only in relation to local news.

Concurrently, few Americans are fully analog or fully digital in terms they get local news. Instead, most (68%) mix offline and online pathways, for example, turning on the tv screen set to watch their local news station but going on line to learn the daily newspaper and neighborhood listserv.

Just 7% of Americans indicate that they can exclusively use digital pathways for their primary access points. Three times as numerous U.S. adults (21%) mainly access all providers they get news from with an analog pathway – though this is still another clear minority.

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