Study finds Facebook becoming key player in news

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Facebook is becoming a key source of news for users of the huge social network, even if people discover articles mostly by happenstance, a study showed on Thursday.

The study by the Pew Research Center, in collaboration with the Knight Foundation, found 64 per cent of US adults use Facebook, and nearly half of those get some news from the service.

That amounts to 30 per cent of the overall US population who are "Facebook news consumers", Pew said.

But the survey found 78 per cent of this group get news mainly when they are on Facebook for other reasons, such as checking on friends or sharing photos.

Roughly two-thirds of Facebook news consumers say they at least sometimes click on news links, and 60 per cent at least sometimes "like" or comment on stories, the researchers found.

About four in 10 users post or share links themselves at least sometimes, and 32 per cent discuss issues in the news with other people on Facebook, the survey found.

The study found Facebook users click on a news link most often because of their interest in the topic or a friend's recommendation, and just 20 per cent said they did so because of the news organisation.

About a third of Facebook news consumers have news organisations or individual journalists in their feeds, Pew found.