Newspaper Still Plays the LeadingRole in US

Everywhere you turn， there are stories about the rapid ascent of the Internet as Americans information medium of choice. The trend line is clearly pointing in that direction， but according to a new national survey， traditional media are far from being outmoded or irrelevant.

The survey， by the independent Pew Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism and the newspaper-supported Knight Foundation， broke down local information into 16 topic areas and asked people where they learn about each of them.

Turns out， Americans have developed what the Pew Centers director， Tom Rosenstiel， calls a complex ecosystem in which people rely on different platforms for different topics.

More than 80 percent of respondents， for instance， said they still turn to local TV first for breaking news. And 89 percent go there， not to the Web， to get the latest weather information.

And newspapers are a long way from being dead as a go-to information source. Newspapers and newspaper websites ranked first or tied for first as the resource Americans rely on in 11 of the 16 key categories—including crime， taxes， and the arts.

Even the oldest communication form of all—word of mouth—ranked second to local TV as respondents preferred source of information about their communities.

At the same time， according to the Pew and Knight report， “Nearly half of adults occasionally now get local information on mobile devices， though it is still largely a supplemental platform for them.”

The survey of 2，251 American adults is one of the first of nationwide scope that clearly shows the growing complexity of the media landscape， and the willingness—even eagerness—with which consumers are relying on both old and new formats to get their information.

無论你走到哪里，都能听到有关互联网成为美国人媒体信息来源选择的故事。发展趋势自然是朝着这个方向的，然而，根据一项新的国民调查，传统媒体还远未过时或远离人们。

这项调查是由独立机构美国皮尤研究中心卓越新闻计划和由报刊业支持的骑士基金会发起的，他们将当地新闻分为16个领域，向人们询问他们从何处得知这些信息。

据皮尤中心主任Tom Rosenstiel的说法，在美国，已形成一个复杂的生态系统，人们依赖不同的平台来获取不同信息。

比如，至少80%的被访问者说，他们仍把电视作为了解当地新闻的首要手段，89%的人通过电视了解最新的气象信息，而不是通过上网。

报纸还远未消失，仍是一大信息来源。在16类信息中，有11种信息是主要通过报纸和报纸网站获得的，包括犯罪、税收和艺术。

即使是最古老的信息传播方式——口口相传，也仅次于当地电视台，是被访问者最喜欢的了解社区信息的途径。

同时，根据皮尤和骑士的报告：“将近一半的成年人不时地通过移动设备掌握当地信息，但这在很大程度上仍是一种辅助的平台。”

这次调查涉及2251名美国人，是首次全国范围内的调查。调查清楚表明了美国日益复杂的媒体现状，并且消费者也非常喜欢同时使用老式和新式的信息渠道。endprint