@richardfletcher
Director of Research + Deputy Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. Fellow of Green Templeton College. Lead researcher of the Digital News Report. www.richardfletcher.me
🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social):
We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.
Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.
w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social
URL: osf.io/preprints/os...
🚨✨I want your input for the next survey of GenAI use for information and news!
Please fill out the super quick survey here buff.ly/kFDRLqw
Details in the thread!
Last week the story was that TikTok censored anti-Trump/ICE/Pretti videos after the U.S. ownership change. We investigated with a large set of US TikTok data and found some interesting results, short thread...
Bottom line: We found no systematic evidence of political censorship on TikTok post-restructuring at this point. A server outage better explains the data. But the story isn't over, and platforms need to provide the public more transparency.
🤖 | NEW REPORT: Where do AI tools like ChatGPT get their news from? How biased are they towards certain outlets? And how transparent are they about commercial relationships with publishers?
Our new IPPR report answers those questions.
Read here: www.ippr.org/articles/ais...
Short announcement before the data get too old: ccsmainz.github.io/platformnews/. With 571 news outlets on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram across 46 countries, matching the @reutersinstitute.bsky.social DNR. Computational analyses on topics, platformization, diversity, etc. Feedback welcome.
According to our Digital News Report data (collected by YouGov), 12% used X for news "in the last week" in 2025. We don't ask about people's most important outlet/social network for news.
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news...
The digital news media environment does not only reproduce old class structures. It reinforces them
That is the key finding in new paper led by @antoniskalog.bsky.social analyzing social inequalities in offline and online news use across 6 countries over 10 years www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Publishers expect traffic from search to fall by 43% in the next 3 years. This is one of the findings of our new report on media trends. Authored by Nic Newman, it's based on a survey of 280 media leaders.
Full report
buff.ly/Dh2JIuT
7 findings in thread
In a new article with @richardfletcher.bsky.social and @rasmuskleis.bsky.social, we examine inequalities in news use in high-choice digital media environments. Drawing on ten years of survey data from six countries in Europe and the US, we compare offline and online news consumption patterns.🧵
The whistleblower, for his part, worked to amp up the pressure. He told me he had shared the document with other reporters, putting me into a competitive crunch. He asked when I thought I would publish. I asked him if he could point me to any current or former coworkers of his who could help me understand the document better. “Not really,” he said. By this point, alarm bells were starting to ring. I wondered if the employee badge the whistleblower had shared with me might have been AI-generated. While AI systems are notoriously unreliable at identifying their own outputs, Google Gemini can detect SynthID watermarks embedded in images that it produces. I uploaded the badge to Gemini and asked if Gemini had made it. “Most or all of this image was edited or generated with Google AI,” it said.
The author of a viral Reddit thread alleging fraud at a food delivery company tried to back up his claim by sending me AI-generated documents. Today I'm publishing those documents in the hopes that it helps other reporter see what we're up against in the age of AI www.platformer.news/fake-uber-ea...
I guess StackOverflow is done.
Unbelievably, #DuvetKnowItsChristmas generates such good will on social media that over the years we've raised somewhere approaching a quarter of a million quid for homeless charities. If you can spare a bob or two, sling some to Centrepoint, and here's the link: www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...
This is the 15th year of #DuvetKnowItsChristmas, which is preposterous. Rules: if you find yourself dealing with unusual / claustrophobic / gaudy sleeping arrangements this Christmas Eve, share a picture with the world. Use the hashtag (with capitalisation) and cc me if you can be bothered.
My Nieman Lab prediction for 2026: The AI bubble may pop but people’s use of AI for information won’t and it's better if we start taking this seriously.
Can chatting with AI sway your political beliefs?
A new joint study from the Oxford Internet Institute and AI Security Institute (AISI) offers unprecedented insights into how conversational AI can exert influence over people’s political beliefs.
Read more: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...
New OCJN report with @mitalilive.bsky.social & @richardfletcher.bsky.social out today tracking climate news consumption across 🇧🇷 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇵🇰 🇬🇧 🇺🇸.
Last year we found a y-o-y decline in climate news use only in 🇺🇸. Worryingly, it’s now spread to 5/8 countries.
What’s going on? A thread 🧵
1️⃣ The use of climate news is in decline in France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US.
It is stable in Brazil, India, and Pakistan. Declines in climate news use are driven by two overlapping trends: reduced climate news access via TV, and reduced use by people over 45.
Our new report out today by @waqasejaz.bsky.social, @mitalilive.bsky.social and @richardfletcher.bsky.social looks at how audiences in 🇧🇷 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇵🇰 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 consume news and information about climate change.
💻 Report: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-chan...
🧵 Some key findings below.
We found that a clear majority of journalists (62%) think that AI represents a large or very large threat to journalism, whereas only a small minority (15%) say it’s a large or very large opportunity. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/jour...
Gulf between AI journalism hype and concerns at the coalface revealed: Far from freeing journalists from 'churnalism' AI could be enabling it, survey suggests pressgazette.co.uk/news/gulf-be...
We have a new @reutersinstitute.bsky.social report based on a survey of how journalists use AI.
Most journalists are now using AI in their work, but they’re pretty pessimistic about what it means for journalism.
Details in the post below.
NEW on our website
@rasmuskleis.bsky.social chaired a commission tasked by the Danish gov to design a system of direct media subsidies. In this piece he explains how they conceived their proposal and what other countries could learn from it
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/taxes-n...
Andy Ford, Road Safety Manager at Oxfordshire County Council’s Fire and Rescue Service (Oxfordshire County Council)
300 cyclists were stopped for riding without lights in the dark and were given temporary lights to get them home safely, as part of Oxfordshire County Council's (OCC) Vision Zero event on Broad St. at the weekend. The event aimed to provide road safety advice for the most vulnerable road users.
As the BBC faces fresh scrutiny, what does our research say about it?
Here's an updated version of a piece by @rasmuskleis.bsky.social @annisch.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social and Craig T. Robertson originally published in 2020
📱 Full piece here buff.ly/iLaMzHa
🧵 4 findings in thread
New Paper Alert 🧵📣
There is a growing concern that the negative valence in climate stories paralyses consumers & perhaps even prevents them from taking pro-environmental actions.
However, we found that climate anxiety is a robust and universal driver of pro-climate behavioral intentions.👇
What if people appreciate having an abundance of content and communication, more than they feel overloaded by it?
@annisch.bsky.social et al decided to have a look. Their results? "We found that appreciation for abundance was about twice as common as overload".
Paper: journalqd.org/article/view...
Did you miss the launch event of our report on news creators and influencers?
Here's a summary by our own Gretel Kahn, which includes four takeaways and many insights from our speakers Emilio Doménech, Akash Banerjee and Mosheh Oinounou
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/summary...
These countries include US Brazil South Africa India Nigeria Kenya Thailand and Indonesia.
“There is a set of populous countries, generally where traditional media are under pressure and social media use is high, where news creators are having a significant impact"
@hanaatameez.bsky.social wrote up a fascinating @reutersinstitute.bsky.social report www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/news...
Our new report on news influencers and creators is out.
It contains:
- 5 key findings (see link)
- Top 15 most mentioned news influencers and creators by survey respondents in 24 countries
- A typology of different content types (and examples of individuals that primarily produce each)