Is social media evolving into a live news source? A new study says that more and more Americans are using Facebook and Twitter as sources of news. The study was conducted by the Pew Research Center together with John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
According to the new study, the majority of Facebook (63 percent) and Twitter (63 percent) users claim that social media has become a news source for different events and issues. These figures had significantly increased since 2013 when only 52 percent of Twitter users and 47 percent of Facebook users got their news from these platforms.
The research reveals that 17 percent of adults are Twitter users, and 66 percent of adults are Facebook users. Also, 10 percent and 41 percent of adults get news from Twitter and Facebook, respectively.
Moreover, the study states that these platforms are slowly focusing on delivering news.
People are more likely to see Twitter posts about sports, business, international news, government new, politics, science and technology, local weather, and entertainment. On the other hand, they are more likely to see Facebook posts about local news, crime, community news, and health and medicine.
The data used in the study was collected from 2,035 US adults.
According to Facebook, the social media giant has an average of 936 million daily active users as of March 2015. Also, It has 1.44 billion monthly active users, and about 82.8 percent of its users are outside the US and Canada.
In May, Facebook introduced the feature "Instant Articles", a product that allows the faster publication of articles on Facebook. The product also allows publishers to gain more control over their stories, using high-res photos and videos, as well as give users more interactive ways of reading them.
The site has partnered with nine publishers: The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, NBC, BBC News, Spiegel, Bild and The Guardian.
"It is great to see Facebook trialing new ways for quality journalism to flourish on mobile," said Tony Danker, The Guardian News & Media International Director.
Twitter currently has 302 million monthly active users. Out of this number of users, 80 percent are active on mobile. As of the first quarter of the year, approximately 500 million tweets are posted every day.
Meanwhile, according to Buzzfeed, Twitter is also reportedly developing a "top secret" project that will embrace its reputation as a live news source.
The project, previously called "Lightning," is going to be a real-time news service that brings live user content about a certain topic. The service allows a user to see posts, photos and videos about any event happening live. Moreover, more people can watch bits of information, which are collected and compiled among ceratin topics.
Recently, the name of the service has been revealed to be "Moments", reports The Telegraph.