For the first time globally, social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have overtaken television and news websites as the most widely used way to access news, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026. “This shift has now happened in around two-thirds of the markets we cover, with direct access still leading in West and Central Europe and in more affluent Asian markets,” according to the report.
The report, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, tracks news consumption across dozens of markets. Its 2026 edition, covering 48 markets, describes a news landscape that is “more platform-based, video-led and creator-shaped, with news becoming less trusted, less central to daily life, and harder to monetise.”
