Civic Engagement Strongly Tied to Local News Habits

In local communities, the civically engaged – the people who vote, volunteer and connect with those around them – play a key role in community life. Thus, how and to what degree they stay informed about their communities carries added weight. A new study by Pew Research Center in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation reveals that, overall, the civically engaged are indeed more likely than the less engaged to use and value local news. But two particular aspects of civic engagement stand out as most closely associated with local news habits: a strong connection to one’s community and always voting in local elections.

Americans with one of these two attributes, the study finds, consistently display stronger local news habits across a range of measures: news interest, news intake (the number and types of sources they turn to) and news attitudes – their views of local news organizations. The roughly one-in-five US adults (19%) who feel highly attached to their communities demonstrate much stronger ties to local news than those who do not feel attached. Similar to the highly attached, those who say they always vote in local elections (27% of US adults) display strikingly stronger local news habits than those who do not regularly vote in local elections.