The Reuters Digital News Report 2023 (Reuters DNR 2023) is by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) and features information on Portugal, among the 46 participating countries.

OberCom - Observatório da Comunicação, as a strategic partner, collaborated with RISJ in the design of the questionnaire for the Portuguese market, as well as in the analysis and interpretation of the data.

"Portugal continues to emerge as one of the markets where less is paid for 'online' news, with only 10.9% of Portuguese saying they had paid for news in digital format in the previous year, compared to a global average of 17%", reads in the document.

In France, the percentage of those who pay is 11%, in Japan, it is 9%, the same as in the United Kingdom.

Conversely, Norway and Sweden "continue to stand out as the markets where most people pay for online news, with proportions of 39% and 33% of the respective national samples", says the Digital News Report 2023.

In Spain, the percentage is 13% and in Italy 12%. In the USA it is 21%, the same percentage as in Finland, while in Australia it is 22%.

"As in previous years, the Portuguese who pay for 'online' news continue to prefer subscription in the 'ongoing' format, continuous, regardless of the frequency of payment (36.1%)", says the report.

Among non-payers for digital news, more than a quarter (27.0%) say "they would pay if the price were more affordable, but 16.8% indicate that the content is not currently relevant enough for them, while a similar number (16.5%) say they would rather pay for a service that allows access to several news sites simultaneously".


Choosing the news

In this year's edition, similarly to what was done in 2016, "questions related to the influence of algorithms on content discovery were applied, exploring the benefits of receiving news content selected by editors or journalists, content suggested via an algorithm based on past consumption or based on the consumption of friends/connections on social networks", says the report.

The survey found that, 38% of respondents "agree that receiving stories selected for them by editors or journalists is positive and 35.7% positively evaluate the selection based on their past consumption".

The proportion of "respondents agreeing that selection based on the consumption of friends or connections on networks is substantially lower, in the order of 24.3%", but younger people "tend to view selection systems based on consumption of friends or connections".


News formats

In terms of news formats, young people prefer videos on Instagram and TikTok for media consumption in Portugal.

"The Portuguese tend to prefer text less than the respondents of the Digital News Report at a global level (50.0% compared to 57.0%), and demonstrate a preference for online news videos more (34.0% compared to 30.0%) and audio (16.0% compared to 13.0%), either live radio or podcasts”, points out the study.

For the consumption of online videos, "the youngest, between 18 and 24 years old, prefer above all Instagram (39.2%), TikTok (33.3%) and Youtube (30.6%), although in general, the Portuguese use Facebook more (33.2%), Youtube (29.2%) and in third place the websites or apps of news brands (27.1%)".

The social networks Instagram and TikTok "come in behind, having been used in the previous week by 20.7% and 15.3% of respondents, respectively".

The authors of the Portuguese study are Gustavo Cardoso, Miguel Paisana and Ana Pinto Martinho, researchers from OberCom and CIES-ISCTE.