Visual News Survey: Visuals Most Helpful in Gaining Attention

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Posted Sep 26, 2013
Anne Pilon

Online news has opened the door for many different ways of conveying news stories. News outlets have made use of visuals such as infographics, photos, charts, graphs and videos to both draw in new readers and to help them better understand certain stories. How many feel that visual news makes a difference in their reading experience?

visual news

News Updates

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 27% of respondents said they check news updates multiple times per day. 39% said they check news updates daily. 16% read or watch news a few times per week. 4% do so about once per week. 12% said they rarely check news updates. And 3% said they never do.69% of respondents said they read or watch online news regularly. 54% watch news on TV. 17% get their news from newspapers or other print publications. 15% get news updates on their mobile devices. And another 15% listen to news on the radio.

New Readers

One of the main reasons for using visuals along with news stories is to get the attention of readers. 31% of readers said that visuals such as photos, videos, charts or graphs definitely draw their attention to certain news stories. 46% said that visuals can be somewhat helpful in accomplishing this task. 20% said that visuals don’t really shift their attention toward certain news stories. And just 3% said that visuals have no impact on them at all.

Understanding Stories

The other main reason for using visuals is to help people understand certain aspects of a news story. 29% said that visuals such as photos, videos, charts or graphs definitely help them understand certain news stories. 51% said that visuals can be somewhat helpful. 17% said that visuals don’t usually help them understand news stories. And 3% said that visuals don’t help them at all.You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: Best Jobs in America from FlickrWhat do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on September 23 via AYTM’s online survey panel.