Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 15 – Facebook and
Twitter “have become the main sources of information for Yandex News,” the
primary sources for about eight percent and five percent of all stories
respectively, a new Yandex analysis shows; but traditional media still account
for a total of 68 percent of all the Russian news aggregator’s stories.
Yandex News has a new function that
allows the company to identify the first source of any particular news
story. Known as “Where did it all begin,”
the program in its first month tracked 3600 primary sources, 40 percent of them
from Russian publications and 28 percent from foreign ones (rbc.ru/technology_and_media/15/02/2016/56c1ab279a7947655db4b680?from=main).
Among “traditional”
sources, TASS led with three percent, followed by “Kommersant” with 2.9
percent, Interfax with 2.8 percent, Reuters with 1.7 percent, all far less than
Facebook or Twitter. Among official
sites, the largest sources of news came from Kremlin.ru, cbr.ru, and mid.ru,
the sites of the Russian president, central bank and foreign ministry
respectively.
In reporting these findings, RBC
noted that Yandex News is “the largest aggregator of news in Russia,”
processing data flowing in from “more than 6500 Russian and foreign media
partners. In December 2015, its monthly audience was 22.5 million people.”
The shift from traditional to social
media is striking and is a reminder that the Kremlin faces a nearly impossible
task of shutting off the flow of news emanating from places like Facebook and
Twitter, outlets that are increasingly used by those who cannot or do not want
to post or be published elsewhere.
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