Millennials Go To Facebook For Political News
by Jesse Millard June 3, 2015
(via Flickr.com user Maria Elena)
A survey from the Pew Research Center this week called “Millennials and Political News” found that Facebook is the leading place where millennials find their political and government news.
The survey found that almost two-thirds of millennials find their political news on Facebook, with 37 percent getting news from local television stations. The numbers are flipped when compared with Baby Boomers, who get 60 percent of their political news from television and 39 percent from Facebook, according to Pew Research.
The survey, conducted last year, was a part of an online study of millennials, Generation X and baby boomers. For purposes of the survey, millennials were described as people born between 1981 and 1996. Generation X was considered to be those born between 1965 to 1980, and boomers from 1946 to 1964.
Generation X is almost evenly divided on sources of political news. A little over half, or 51 percent, get their news from Facebook, with 46 percent heading to local television for their political news, according to Pew Research.
Only 26 percent of the millennials said politics was one of the leading topics in which they are interested, with Generation X caring slightly more at 34 percent. Some 45 percent of boomers said politics was one of their leading interests, according to the report.
Twitter lags among all generations as the place for political news. Millennials used Twitter the most with 14 percent saying they use it to learn about political news, 9 percent of Generation X and Baby Boomers trailers behind with 5 percent.
Younger audiences have been seeking news from different mediums for sometime. Jon Stewart, who is leaving The Daily Show soon as we’ve written, has always been a popular choice for news.
According to a separate Pew Research Center article, Stewart matched USA Today and Huffington Post in terms of where Americans got their news.
