Tinius Digest February 2020
Tinius Digest
Tinius Digest report on changes, trends and developments within the media business at large. This is our key findings from February 2020.
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Insight from February 2020
A new report from Danmarks Statistik (Statistics Denmark) compares digital habits in Denmark with other EU countries – in addition to Norway and Iceland.
The report shows significant differences in Europe – where the Nordic countries stand out as the most digital in Europe.
Five things you should know:
1
E-commerce
91 percent of Danes have been shopping online. That is the highest proportion in Europe, followed by Norway with 88 percent. The EU average is 68 percent.
2
Smart homes
23 percent of Danes own smart home products (IoT). The EU average is ten percent, with the Danes at the top, followed by the Netherlands (21%), Norway (19%), and Sweden (19%).
3
Social media
Big differences in Europe: In Iceland, 92 percent of the population (16-74 years) use social media, followed by Norway (86%) and Denmark (81%). The EU average is 57 percent – with Germany (53%), Italy (42%), and France (42%) at the bottom.
4
Online banking
Norway leads the way, and 95 percent of Norwegians used online banking last year. By comparison: Denmark (91%), Sweden (85%), and Germany (61%).
5
Cloud services
Sweden (63%) has the highest use of cloud services for data storage. By comparison: Denmark (62%), Norway (56%) and Germany (31%).
The Norwegian Media Authority has conducted a survey of 3,400 Norwegian children between the ages of 9 and 18 from 51 schools across the country.
Two reports published in February covers the most significant findings from the survey.
Five things you should know:
1
Usage
51 percent of 9-year-olds use one or more social media channels. For 13+, almost everyone is using social media.
2
Platforms
The largest platforms among 9-18-year-olds are YouTube (95%), Snapchat (80%), TikTok (65%), and Instagram (65%). Just over half (51%) of children use Facebook.
3
E-commerce
53 percent of 13-18-year-olds look for things they can buy online at least once a week.
4
Malicious content
43 percent of 13-18-year-olds have seen content that shows scary or violent images. 34 percent of 13-18 year-olds (most are girls) have seen content that explains ways to lose weight.
5
Fake news
Two out of three 13-18-year-olds have seen what they believe is fake news in the last 12 months. The proportion increases with age, with 81 percent of 17-18-year-olds reporting noticing fake news.
In 2019, YouTube announced that it would crackdown on the spread of conspiracy theories on the platform. The reason was, among other things, that a large number of people suddenly began believing the earth was flat after watching videos on YouTube.
A new study from the University of California and the Mozilla Foundation has analyzed eight million recommendations on YouTube over 15 months.
Four things you should know:
1
Fewer recommendations
The number of recommendations for videos with conspiracy theories fell by 70 percent between January 2019 and May 2019.
2
Growth since May 2019
But: As of May 2019, the number of recommendations for conspiracy videos increased, and the proportion is now only 40 percent lower.
3
Clear (but secret) policy
The study suggests the recommended videos indicate that YouTube has a clear policy on what conspiracies they allow and which they do allow. Flat earth conspiracies and conspiracies about 9/11 get fewer recommendations.
4
Climate deniers
Conspiracies promoting climate deniers and that the moon landing was a hoax get more recommendations.
Despite having 290 newspapers: The media diversity in Norway is under pressure in the long run.
In February, The Norwegian Media Authority published the first of three reports concerning media diversity. The first report looks into the diversity of media organizations, with reports about content diversity and user diversity being published later this year.
Download the report.
Four things you should know:
1
Few regional media organizations
Few Norwegian media organizations cover the regional level, and in the absence of private media companies, public broadcaster NRK is getting an increasingly important role.
2
Oslo – the only blind zone
Oslo – the capital of Norway – is the only real journalistic blind zone found in the report.
3
Radio unaffected by digital shift
The market share for the three major actors within Norwegian radio remained unaffected by the digital shift (DAB) in 2017. The number of nationwide radio channels has increased from five to 32 since 2017.
4
One out of four editors are women
45 percent of Norwegian journalists are women, but the number of female editors is only one out of four.
According to the British Media Authority, Ofcom, Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg is causing increased online social activism among children in the UK.
Ofcom is calling it a ‘Greta effect,’ but that is only one of several interesting findings from their survey of 3,500 British children and parents.
Six things you should know:
1
Increased engagement
Almost a fifth of 12-15-year-olds uses social media to express support for causes and organizations by sharing or commenting on posts. One in 10 signed petitions on social media.
2
Fragmented usage
The use of social media has become more fragmented, and the Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp (62%) will soon be on par with Facebook (69%), Snapchat (68%) and Instagram (66%).
3
TikTok is not (yet) a factor
A lot of hype about TikTok (13%), but just as many British children between the ages of 12 and 15 use Pinterest (13%).
4
Parents more concerned
Many British parents do not believe that the benefits of their child being online outweighed the risks.
5
Girl gamers on the increase
Almost half of girls aged five to 15 now play games online – up from 39 percent in 2018.
6
Smart speakers > Radio
There are now more British children using smart speakers (27%) than listening to radio (22%).
A new report from AudienceProject shows that more people are willing to pay for digital editorial content – at least in Scandinavia.
Five things you should know:
1
Norway in front
Today 37 percent of Norwegians pay for online editorial content. That is an increase of ten percentage points in two years.
2
Scandinavian growth
The willingness to pay is also increasing in Sweden (20% pay for online editorial content) and Denmark (15%).
3
Declining numbers in the US and the UK
While The New York Times is aggressively growing its digital subscription revenue, the number of actual people paying for news is decreasing in both the US (13%) and the UK (8%).
4
Men more eager to pay
Men are overall more willing to pay for online editorial content in every country in the report.
5
Social media > Printed newspapers
Social media is preferred to printed newspapers as a source of news in every country but Finland and Germany.