Turns out, Republicans and Democrats have quite a few things in common — at least when it comes to podcasts.
Elisa Shearer, a senior researcher with the Pew Research Center’s News & Information Team, is lead author of a recent report on how Americans use and view podcasts as a source of information.
“Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to say they listen to podcasts, roughly equally likely to say they get news on the podcasts they listen to,” she says. “They’re also likely to say they expect the news they hear to be mostly accurate.”
The difference between them, once again, comes down to the Stephen Colbert question of truthiness.
“Where Republican podcast listeners differed is they said they were more likely to say the news they hear is unique. It’s not something they would’ve heard somewhere else,” Shearer says. “That speaks to seeing podcasts as like a special place they can go. They were more likely to say they trust that news more than what they get from other sources — 46 percent of Republicans said that versus 19 percent of Democrats. Democrats are more likely to say they trust the news about the same as the news I hear from other sources.”
The people surveyed by Pew for this study were not explicitly asked about the sense of misinformation they received on podcasts, or whether podcasts were a source thereof.
“We asked about accuracy and 87 percent of listeners said they expect the news they hear on podcasts to be accurate,” Shearer says. “You’re more likely choosing each podcast you’re listening to with more intentionality. That might be connected to that sense of accuracy.”
Speaking of news, two-thirds of respondents to the Pew survey said they heard news discussed on the podcasts they listen to, but only 20 percent said they knew whether the podcasts they listened to were directly connected with a news organization, while 59 percent said no and 21 percent were not sure.
“Even if all the ‘not sure’ folks are also listening to a news podcast they’re not sure about, that doesn’t match with the 67 percent that say they’re hearing about the news on the podcast they listen to,” Shearer says. “That makes sense; there’s a lot of commentary stuff, there are a lot of people who are independent who might not be connected to a news organization, who are journalists who are working independently in the podcast medium. There’s lots of news and information that’s coming to people that’s not coming directly from news organizations.”
As a researcher for Pew for eight years, Shearer says she really enjoyed the work on this particular report because podcasts are still a comparatively new platform, for news, for entertainment and for the audience.
“My experience is one niche over here,” she says. “Being able to research other Americans’ experiences, the topics they’re listening to, their experiences can be totally different from mine.”
