Most Americans follow news about local government and politics, yet only a quarter of them are highly satisfied with the quality of coverage
The Pew-Knight Initiative supports new research on how Americans absorb civic information, form beliefs and identities, and engage in their communities.
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Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand how U.S. adults get news about local government and politics, as well as their attitudes toward this coverage. It is the second report in a series focused on local news.
The survey of 5,146 U.S. adults was conducted from Jan. 22 to 28, 2024. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.
Refer to the topline for the questions used for this survey, along with responses, and to the methodology for more details.
This is a Pew Research Center report from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Find related reports online at https://www.pewresearch.org/pew-knight/.
This is the second report in a series focused on local news. Read our first report, “Americans’ Changing Relationship With Local News.”
Americans want information about local government and politics. Most say they are at least somewhat interested in news about local laws and policies and local elections. And about two-thirds say they often or sometimes get local political news – higher than the shares who get news on several other local topics, including the economy and sports.
But among Americans who get news on local politics, only a quarter are highly satisfied with the quality of the news they get, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Those who get news about weather, traffic and several other topics are more likely to be satisfied with the news they get in those areas.
Americans also do not widely see it as easy to find the news and information they need to take part in the local political process. Fewer than half of U.S. adults (45%) say it is very or somewhat easy to find the information they need to make voting decisions in local elections. By comparison, 59% say it is easy to find the information they need for presidential elections.
In both cases, much higher shares of Americans say they are at least somewhat interested in news about elections than say it is easy to find the information they need to vote.
There is virtually no difference between Democrats and Republicans (including independents who lean toward each party) in the shares who say it is easy to find the information they need to vote locally. But younger adults are less likely than those ages 50 and older to say it is easy to be an informed local voter.
Jump to more information on how U.S. adults view local political news.
We asked these questions to better understand how Americans get local political news at a time when many local news outlets are struggling, local news consumption habits are becoming more digital, and public attention to local news is declining. This report, the second in a series focused on local news, is part of the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Other key findings about Americans’ experiences with local political news include:
Americans most often get local political news from friends and family, local news outlets, and social media
U.S. adults get news about local government and politics from a variety of different sources. The most common are friends, family and neighbors (70%) and local news outlets (66%).
Just over half (54%) also say they often or sometimes get news about local politics from social media.
Smaller shares say they at least sometimes get local political news from local government websites (32%), local nonprofits or advocacy groups (31%), or local politicians (30%).
There are gaps between younger and older adults in some of the sources they turn to for local political news:
- 71% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 29 get news about local government and politics from social media often or sometimes, compared with 36% of those 65 and older.
- Conversely, Americans 65 and older are more inclined than adults under 30 to get local political news from local news outlets (75% vs. 53%) and from local politicians (39% vs. 20%).
Similar shares of older and younger adults get news about local politics from friends, family and neighbors.
Jump to more details about Americans’ sources for local political news.
Americans are more interested in news about national politics than local politics
In general, nearly identical shares of Americans say they follow local news and national news very or somewhat closely. But when it comes to politics in particular, there is more interest in news about national politics than local politics.
- Americans are more likely to say they are at least somewhat interested in presidential elections (81%) than local elections (70%). The gap is even larger when looking at the share who are extremely or very interested in presidential (54%) and local (34%) elections.
- U.S. adults also are more likely to say they are extremely or very interested in national laws and policies (50%) than local laws and policies (42%).
- There is no significant difference between Republicans and Democrats in the shares who are at least somewhat interested in news about their local elections (73% and 71%, respectively) or local laws and policies (83% and 82%).
Americans who are more attached to their local community are more interested in and satisfied with local political news
There are clear links between Americans’ sense of community attachment and their experiences with news on local government and politics. Those who feel more attached to their community have more interest in news about local laws and local elections, higher satisfaction with the quality of their local political news, and an easier time finding the information they need to vote.
- 91% of Americans who feel very attached to their community are at least somewhat interested in news about local laws and policies, compared with 68% of those who are not very or not at all attached. A similar pattern holds for interest in news about local elections.
- A majority of Americans with a strong sense of community connection (61%) say it is at least somewhat easy to find the information they need to make voting decisions in local elections. Among those with little or no sense of community attachment, just 34% feel this way.
- Among U.S. adults who follow news about local government and politics, four-in-ten of those with strong community attachment are extremely or very satisfied with the local political news they get – more than double the share among those who feel little or no attachment to their community (16%).
Community attachment remains an important factor in these opinions independent of whether people are registered to vote or how closely they follow local political news.
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