Thank you for the article on Youtube news, it is really right on the mark. However, I have to call you out again on the this sentence 'For starters, it makes sense in a youthful continent with relatively low literacy rates' which I think is just gratuitous. One would have thought that the social media phenomenon is due to higher literacy rates after all a person must be able to read and write to maneuver around a smartphone, YouTube Instagram, tiktok etc. The wesbite Statista says that-
'In 2022, 67.4 percent of people aged 15 years and above in Africa were able to read and write a simple statement and understand it. Regionally, Southern Africa presented the highest literacy rate, at 80 percent.'
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Mary, as usual. You raise a fair point about the relationship between social media usage and literacy rates. Upon further reflection, we agree that the phrasing in the article could be clearer.
The way we understand the Reuters Institute research is that YouTube news videos are relatively more popular as a source of news in parts of the world with lower literacy rates compared to other regions, including many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And in areas with relatively higher literacy rates globally, people tend to rely more on search engines and news aggregator websites as their primary gateway to news content, in addition to social media.
So in the African context, while rising literacy and smartphone adoption are likely contributing to greater social media news engagement overall, YouTube's popularity for news in Africa is notable when compared to news consumption patterns in higher-literacy parts of the world. The authors of the original article, and we, could perhaps have been more explicit in clarifying they were making a global comparative statement.
Thank you for the article on Youtube news, it is really right on the mark. However, I have to call you out again on the this sentence 'For starters, it makes sense in a youthful continent with relatively low literacy rates' which I think is just gratuitous. One would have thought that the social media phenomenon is due to higher literacy rates after all a person must be able to read and write to maneuver around a smartphone, YouTube Instagram, tiktok etc. The wesbite Statista says that-
'In 2022, 67.4 percent of people aged 15 years and above in Africa were able to read and write a simple statement and understand it. Regionally, Southern Africa presented the highest literacy rate, at 80 percent.'
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Mary, as usual. You raise a fair point about the relationship between social media usage and literacy rates. Upon further reflection, we agree that the phrasing in the article could be clearer.
The way we understand the Reuters Institute research is that YouTube news videos are relatively more popular as a source of news in parts of the world with lower literacy rates compared to other regions, including many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And in areas with relatively higher literacy rates globally, people tend to rely more on search engines and news aggregator websites as their primary gateway to news content, in addition to social media.
So in the African context, while rising literacy and smartphone adoption are likely contributing to greater social media news engagement overall, YouTube's popularity for news in Africa is notable when compared to news consumption patterns in higher-literacy parts of the world. The authors of the original article, and we, could perhaps have been more explicit in clarifying they were making a global comparative statement.