Social media is fast becoming one of the main destinations for news online. An infographic created by the University of Florida Online, explores the evolution of the news industry and the way news is consumed.
In 2012 there were 2.4 billion Internet users, and 1.4 billion of them were using social media. Nearly 50 percent of Internet users surveyed said they regularly or occasionally heard about a breaking story on social media before it broke on mainstream sources. And this trend drives a lot of people to news sites. In fact, since 2009, social media buzz has resulted in a 57 percent increase in traffic to news sites.
Now online dominates the news market, with 64.5 percent of people going to official sites like The New York Times to get their news. Surprisingly, nearly 30 percent of people still get their news from the papers, but social media is hot on print’s heels with 27.7 percent of consumers.
The infographic also tracks the history of the development of press techniques in tandem with the rise of social media. The press has come a long way from the first live press conferences of JFK in 1961 to CNN becoming the first 24-hours news station in 1980. But social media and the internet have dominated the last 20 years.
