Sociodemographic profiles and predictors of news consumers

Abstract

Introduction: This research article examines the sociodemographic profile of Spanish news consumers in the last decade. Methods: The study is based on ten surveys conducted by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS, according to its initials in Spanish) between 2006 and 2017, on samples ranging from 2,455 to 3,191 participants, to determine whether sociodemographic profiles of news consumers are different across media platforms and whether they can efficiently predict news consumption. Results: It is concluded that the Internet has increased the consumption of print and digital newspapers. News consumption in radio and television is so widespread that the selected sociodemographic variables do not allow us to detect noticeable differences. However, newspaper readers are predominantly male, urban, middle-aged, middle and upper class, and highly educated. Internet news consumers basically match the previous profile, except in terms of age, as they are younger. In the case of newspaper and Internet news, the variables that predict their consumption more efficiently are education level, female sex (negative correlation) and social class (positive correlation). Finally, the correlation coefficients between news consumption in all three media platforms are significant, but not very high.