78% Of Filipinos Get Their News From Facebook – Ateneo Study

A study conducted by the Ateneo School of Government found that more Filipinos acquire their news from their Facebook feed compared to other traditional and online media sources.

The study, based on an online survey conducted from Oct. 27 to Nov. 12 last year, found that 78.8 percent of the respondents often get their news from incidental or random news exposure on their Facebook feed.

Some 66.1 percent said they get it from television, followed by YouTube (56.7 percent), news websites (53.3 percent), radio (32 percent), messaging applications (30.2 percent), Twitter (21.7 percent) and printed news or magazines (17.9 percent).

Project research manager and University of the Philippines communication research professor Ma. Rosel San Pascual explained that most respondents indicated multiple sources of news and that the results do not “necessarily mean that Facebook is their only source of news.”

The survey was conducted in cooperation with Rakuten Insight, a Singapore-based independent research firm. The research team is composed of multidisciplinary researchers from the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo School of Government.

The 2,000 respondents were chosen using random sampling among 315,000 individuals who took part in a survey using Rakuten Insight’s online panel. The sample distribution was based on 2015 national census.

According to researchers, results also showed that two in every three respondents or about 71 percent said that they pay attention to posts about government and politics on their Facebook feed.

More than half of 59 percent said they would click on the link to the whole story or watch the video at least most of the time whenever they see a political news story on their Facebook feed.

Findings also showed that those who do not rely solely on their Facebook feed for political information perceive that they have better understanding of politics and are more confident in participating in political discussions, compared to those who were reliant on their Facebook feed for news and information about politics.

“Those who are not reliant on their Facebook feed for news have a greater variety of sources of news for politics, government, and governance. They are proactively seeking news, they do not just depend on random news exposure on their Facebook feed, they also encounter news from other sources. Thus, they are still informed even if they are not exposed on news from Facebook,” San Pascual said.

“Because of this, they tend to feel more confident to engage politically… versus those who only rely on incidental news exposure on Facebook,” she added.

The study also found that individuals who rely on random news exposure on Facebook are more cynical about politics than those who are not Facebook-reliant for news.

Despite actively consuming news from Facebook, the majority of respondents said that they still trust legacy or traditional media when it comes to providing accurate information about politics and political personalities.

“Their exposure is just as good as the curated news and commentaries that they encounter in their feed. If the random news that they encounter on their Facebook feed have elements that contribute to their cynicism, high distrust in institutions, high distrust in media, it can help form opinions and develop a more cynical mindset towards government, politics, and their own role in society,” San Pascual noted.

Authors urged the public to actively seek news stories from diverse and credible news sources especially this election season.

They also stressed the need to always check the credibility of the source of news stories, as well as to fact-check the information that they see online.

San Pascual also cited the importance of reading the entire story or watching the full video, noting that it can be dangerous to just read captions as these can be sensationalized.

“We wish to remind the public that it is not enough to get political news from your Facebook feed. The habit of actively seeking news from a variety of credible sources is very important to increase your understanding of politics and level of confidence in participating in political affairs,” she added.

“Being properly informed will give you that feeling of empowerment, that reinforcement that you actually have the capacity to create the change that you want. Not just when you cast your vote in your ballot, but in everyday practice of being involved in political affairs.”

(An earlier version of the article mistakenly referred to Prof. Ma. Rosel San Pascual as a communication research professor from the Ateneo de Manila University. She is an associate professor of communication research at the University of the Philippines Diliman.)