Last year witnessed the rise of Newsmax and One America News (OAN), two alternative media outlets seen as potential competitors to Fox News. But a new Pew Research Center survey finds that the long-standing cable superpower still has a much wider reach among both Republicans and Americans overall as a source of political news.
About six-in-ten Republicans and those who lean Republican (62%) got political news in the past week from Fox News, compared with 21% who say they got news from Newsmax and 14% who did so from OAN. In addition, while about three-in-ten Democrats and those who lean Democratic say they got political news from Fox, virtually none of them did from Newsmax and OAN.
The survey, conducted March 8-14, 2021, among 12,045 U.S. adults who are part of the Center’s American Trends Panel, also found that 43% of U.S. adults say they got political news in the past week from Fox News. That is about four times the portion who said the same of Newsmax (10%) and about six times the percentage of who said they turned to OAN (7%). It is also roughly on par with the 39% who said they got political news from Fox in November of 2019. The survey finds that the Newsmax and OAN audiences are similar in size to the shares of Americans who turned to HuffPost (9%), The Hill (8%) or the Sean Hannity Show on radio (7%) for political news in the past week.
The survey, conducted March 8-14, 2021, among 12,045 U.S. adults who are part of the Center’s American Trends Panel, also found that 43% of U.S. adults say they got political news in the past week from Fox News. That is about four times the portion who said the same of Newsmax (10%) and about six times the percentage of who said they turned to OAN (7%). It is also roughly on par with the 39% who said they got political news from Fox in November of 2019. The survey finds that the Newsmax and OAN audiences are similar in size to the shares of Americans who turned to HuffPost (9%), The Hill (8%) or the Sean Hannity Show on radio (7%) for political news in the past week.
Among the report’s other key findings:
- Fox News appeals more broadly across the ideological spectrum in the Republican Party. While 66% of Republican conservatives got news from Fox in the past week, so did 55% of moderate and liberal Republicans. On the other hand, the smaller audiences of Newsmax and OAN are substantially more skewed to conservatives: 27% of conservative Republicans turned to Newsmax vs. 10% of moderate or liberal Republicans; and 19% of conservative Republicans got news from OAN, vs. 7% of moderate or liberal Republicans.
- The survey does not find that users of these challengers have abandoned Fox News. In fact, the vast majority of Newsmax and OAN news consumers also turned to Fox News for political news in the past week. Fully 77% of U.S. adults who got political news from Newsmax in the past week also said they got news from Fox News, while 69% of OAN news consumers said the same. The survey also finds some overlap among those Americans who turn to Newsmax and those who turn to OAN. About four-in-ten U.S. adults who said they got political news from Newsmax in the past week (43%) also got news from OAN. And about six-in-ten of those who turned to OAN for political news (62%) also said they turned to Newsmax.
- More Americans in major demographic groups are turning to Fox News than Newsmax or OAN, reflecting Fox’s much larger audience overall.
- White Americans are more likely to turn to Newsmax (13%) and OAN (8%) for political news than Black and Hispanic Americans, though percentages are small overall. That compares with the 5% and 4% of Hispanic Americans and 2% and 1% of Black Americans who use Newsmax and OAN for political news, respectively. Meanwhile, Fox News attracts roughly equal portions of White (44%), Black (47%) and Hispanic adults (41%). Among Asian Americans adults surveyed, fewer (29%) said they got political news from Fox in the past week.
- Older adults are more likely than younger adults to turn to both Newsmax and OAN – 13% of those ages 50 to 64 and 16% of those 65 and older got political news from Newsmax in the past week, while just 6% of those ages 30 to 49 and 4% of those 18 to 29 say the same. OAN has similar age differences, with those 50 and older more likely to turn to the outlet for political news. Fox News also skews older, commanding nearly half of those users 50 and older. However, a sizable portion of younger adults still turn to Fox News for political news – roughly four-in-ten Americans under 50.
- Fox News is far more likely to be turned to by Americans with less than a college education. Among those with a high school education or less, 52% got news from Fox News, followed by 43% of those with some college, 36% of college grads and 31% of those who did postgraduate work. Those differences by education are less pronounced for both Newsmax (ranging from 7% to 11% in the four groups) and OAN (ranging from 4% to 8%).
No comments:
Post a Comment