Newspaper, notebook with pen, cell phone, coffee mug and sunglasses on a wooden table.

Reuters Institute Digital News Report

The annual international representative survey conducted by the Reuters Institute in Oxford examines news usage and reveals general trends and national characteristics of developments. The Leibniz Institute for Media Research is conducting the German part of the study.

In addition to traditional media, the current media landscape is characterized by many stationary and mobile devices that enable access to news information at any time and any place via the Internet. The content and forms of offerings available as a result are just as diverse as their providers. Since 2012, the Oxford-based Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has been investigating the impact of these developments on the population’s information-oriented use of media as part of the Reuters Institute Digital News Survey. The focus lies on the following questions: How important are individual devices, providers and forms of news? How do people search for and find news? And how is the willingness to pay for news on the Internet developing?

Current Findings

The international and the German report 2024 were published on 17 June 2024.

The 2023 study was conducted simultaneously in the following countries under the coordination of the Oxford (UK) based Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile1, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States. This was done to identify general trends as well as national characteristics.

About 2,000 people were surveyed per country in 2023. The eleventh repetition of the study is based on the answers of 93,895 respondents from 46 countries on six continents. The fieldwork was carried out by the polling institute YouGov in January 2023.

Since 2013, the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut has been the collaborating partner responsible for the German contribution. In 2023, the survey was funded by the State Media Authorities and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF).

The findings of each year for Germany are published as working papers.

About the Study

Since 2012, the Reuters Institute Digital News Survey has been examining general trends and national characteristics of news usage via representative surveys in 46 countries every year. What types of news are of interest? Which devices and channels are used to find them? Which providers are trusted? And what are people’s views on the funding of journalism?

Findings from Previous Years

2023

2022

The international and the German report 2022 were published in London on 15 June 2022.

2021

The international and the German report 2021 were published in London on 23 June 2021.

2020

The international as well as the German Report 2020 were published on 16 June 2020.

The surveys in Germany were conducted between 17 and 30 January 2020 by the survey institute YouGov prior to the COVID19 pandemic. In a separate study, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism conducted a supplementary survey on specific news usage under COVID-19 conditions. The findings of this survey are presented in several parts of the German report.

2019

The international as well as the German Report 20191 were published on 12 June 2019 in London and Athens.

On the occasion of the publication of a special analysis by the Reuters Institute, a controversy broke out in September 2019 over the alleged statement that the political centre no longer looks “heute [today]” and “Tagesschau.” This was published by the magazine ÜBERMEDIEN on 18 September 2019 under the title “Linke Programme für ein linkes Publikum? Was die Reuters-Studie wirklich zeigt“ [Left-Wing Programmes for a Left-Wing Audience? What the Reuters Study Really Shows”].
Also in the magazine ÜBERMEDIEN the article  “So links ist das Publikum von „Tagesschau“ und „heute“ wirklich“ [“That’s How Left-Wing the Audience of “Tagesschau” and “heute” Really Is”] was published on 26 November 2019. It is based on a statement that Prof. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink and Dr. Sascha Hölig, the authors of the German part of the study, had made with regard to “die Rolle öffentlich-rechtlicher Nachrichten beim Nachrichtenpublikum“ [The Role of Public News Regarding the News Audience] (pdf) on 21 October 2019.

2018

The international as well as the German report of 2018 was published on 14 June 2018 in London, New York and Berlin.

2017

  • Ergebnisse des „Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017″ für Deutschland (Working Papers of the Hans-Bredow-Institut, No. 42; pdf)
  • Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 (Report in English, pdf-Datei)

2016

  • Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2016 (Report in English, pdf)
  • Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2016 Ergebnisse für Deutschland (pdf), published as Working Papers of the Hans-Bredow-Institut, No. 38

2015

  • Digital News Report 2015 (Report in English, pdf)
  • Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2016: Ergebnisse für Deutschland (pdf), published as Working Papers of the Hans-Bredow-Institut, No. 34

2014

  • Digital News Report 2014 (Report in English, pdf)
  • Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2014: Ergebnisse für Deutschland (pdf)

2013

Project details

Overview

Start of the term: 2013; End of term: 2024

Research programme: RP 1 Transformation of Public Communication

Persons involved

Co-operation partners

Contact person

Sascha Hölig

Dr. Sascha Hölig

Senior Researcher Media Usage

Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI)
Rothenbaumchaussee 36
20148 Hamburg
Germany

Similar projects & publications

Bild des 1600 Seiten starken Kommnatrs
Publikation The most comprehensive HBI publication ever!

DSA DMA Commentary

It is the most extensive publication the HBI has ever produced: the 1600-page commentary on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), edited by Tobias Mast, Matthias C. Kettemann, Stephan Dreyer and Wolfgang Schulz. In addition to several current and former researchers from the institute, almost 30 other experts from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were recruited for the commentary project.

Cover des Kurzgutachtens
Publikation Brief Expert Opinion

State Treaty on the Reform of the Procedure for Setting the Broadcasting License Fee

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz and Dr. Tobias Mast have provided their expert opinion on the State Treaty on the Reform of the Procedure for Setting the Broadcasting Fee (RFinÄStV). At the end of 2004, the federal states had decided to separate the pillars of the reform of public broadcasting and to adopt the draft reform first and to continue the process of reforming the procedure for setting the licence fee separately.

Cover of the first volume of the EU publication series

The Protection of Freedom of Expression in the Digital Services Act

The publication "Der Schutz der Meinungsäusserungsfreiheit im Digital Services Act" [The Protection of Freedom of Expression in the Digital Services Act], to which Matthias C. Kettemann contributed significantly, is the first in a series of KommAustria publications on the DSA, which are intended to provide a basis for understanding the DSA and contribute to a more differentiated discussion.

Cover of Working Paper No. 76
Publikation Project Findings Available for Download

Between Curiosity and Skepticism: Use and Perception of Generative AI for Information Search in Germany

The research project "Generative Artificial Intelligence for Information Navigation", funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), investigated to what extent, for what purposes and for what reasons the German population uses generative artificial intelligence in applications such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini. The findings can be downloaded as a working paper.

Cover of the 6/2025 issue of the New Journal of Administrative Law.
Publikation Article in Journal for Administrative Law

Trusted Flaggers Are Not Authorized Agents!

In the current issue of the Neue Zeitschrift für Verwaltungsrecht, Tobias Mast challenges the increasingly prominent view in legal literature that trusted flaggers under Art. 22 of the Digital Services Act (DSA) are public authorities in the sense of German administrative law.

Cover of the Publication
Publikation Education Study in Media Perspektiven

The Population’s View of ZDF’s Educational Function

A study on the educational mandate of the ZDF has for the first time examined the population's educational expectations and perceptions. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, Uwe Hasebrink and Dieter Storll were involved in an advisory capacity in the design and evaluation of the study and have presented the core findings in detail in an article.

Auf schwarz-weißem Schachbrett stehen sich weiße und schwarze Figuren gegenüber
Projekt DAAD cooperation project

Mapping Polarization in News Media Content

How are polarizing topics reported in Germany and Australia – and does this reporting contribute to the polarization of political attitudes? The project examines how news content in both countries differs in its coverage of controversial issues – and whether this reporting contains potentially polarizing elements.

Cover of the Handbook Digital Journalism
Publikation Recently Published

Handbook of Digital Journalism

The second edition of the Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies offers a collection of 54 essays addressing current issues and debates in the field of digital journalism studies, including two articles by Julius Reimer / Wiebke Loosen and Lisa Merten.

Cover von Heft 1/2025 der Zeitschrift M&K
Publikation Available Open Access

Issue 1/2025 of M&K Published

Issue 1/2025 of our journal Media & Communication Studies (M&K) has been published, including articles on journalism in Germany in 2023, on the role of Google and YouTube in the dissemination of conspiracy theories, and on journalistic role expectations and ideals of social coexistence in the German population. All content can be downloaded for free from the Nomos eLibrary.

Cover of the journal Computational Communication Research
Publikation Open Access Article

Data Donations from Journalism

In their article “I Really Thought I Would Use More Than Just Google: Investigating Professional Journalistic Online Use with Browser History Donations”, Lisa Merten, Felix Victor Münch and Maren Schuster describe how the method of data donation can be used to investigate professional media use in journalism. The article was published in the open access journal Computational Communication Research.

1 2 3 … 8

Page 1 from 8

Newsletter

Information about current projects, events and publications of the institute.

Subscribe now