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Who are the users of Danish alternative media? A survey study on the prevalence of alternative news use in Denmark and profiles of the users

Miriam Kroman Brems
Miriam Kroman Brems
   | Mar 21, 2024
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Published Online: Mar 21, 2024
Page range: 81 - 113
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2024-0014
Keywords
© 2024 Miriam Kroman Brems, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

FIGURE 1

Estimated use of alternative media among the adult Danish population (per cent)Comments: N = 2,455. Data weighted to match the adult Danish population on age, gender, level of education, and place of residence.
Estimated use of alternative media among the adult Danish population (per cent)Comments: N = 2,455. Data weighted to match the adult Danish population on age, gender, level of education, and place of residence.

FIGURE 2

Predicted average probability of alternative news use, by gender and age (per cent)Comments: N = 2,455. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.028; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.059. Variables included in the model: gender and age. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars see Appendix E in the online supplement).
Predicted average probability of alternative news use, by gender and age (per cent)Comments: N = 2,455. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.028; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.059. Variables included in the model: gender and age. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars see Appendix E in the online supplement).

FIGURE 3

Predicted average probability of alternative news use by level of education and place of residence (per cent)Comments: N = 2,455. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.035; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.072. Variables included in the model: gender, age, level of education, and place of residence. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).
Predicted average probability of alternative news use by level of education and place of residence (per cent)Comments: N = 2,455. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.035; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.072. Variables included in the model: gender, age, level of education, and place of residence. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).

FIGURE 4

Predicted average probability of alternative news use by political interest (per cent)Comments: N = 2,118. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.066; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.135. Variables included in the model: gender, age, level of education, place of residence, ideological orientation, and political interest. Results for “do not wish to answer” not displayed in figure (n = 22). CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).
Predicted average probability of alternative news use by political interest (per cent)Comments: N = 2,118. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.066; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.135. Variables included in the model: gender, age, level of education, place of residence, ideological orientation, and political interest. Results for “do not wish to answer” not displayed in figure (n = 22). CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).

FIGURE 5

Predicted average probability of alternative news use by ideological orientationComments: N = 2,118. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.066; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.135. Variables in the model: gender, age, level of education, place of residence, political interest, and ideological orientation (0 = left; 10 = right). Vertical lines indicate lower and upper quartiles. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).
Predicted average probability of alternative news use by ideological orientationComments: N = 2,118. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.066; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.135. Variables in the model: gender, age, level of education, place of residence, political interest, and ideological orientation (0 = left; 10 = right). Vertical lines indicate lower and upper quartiles. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).

FIGURE 6

Predicted average probability of alternative news use by mainstream news orientationComments: N = 2,118. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.102; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.202. Variables included in the model: gender, age, level of education, place of residence, political interest, ideological orientation, public service orientation, national dailies orientation, tabloid orientation. Vertical lines indicate lower and upper quartiles. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).
Predicted average probability of alternative news use by mainstream news orientationComments: N = 2,118. McFadden’s pseudo-R2 = 0.102; Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2 = 0.202. Variables included in the model: gender, age, level of education, place of residence, political interest, ideological orientation, public service orientation, national dailies orientation, tabloid orientation. Vertical lines indicate lower and upper quartiles. CI error bars omitted for better graphical overview (for graphs with error bars, see Appendix E in the online supplement).

Other variables in the analysis

Variable Mean Standard deviation Minimum value Maximum value n
Political interest 2.78 .85 1 4 2,433
Ideological orientation 5.31 2.58 0 10 2,118
Public service orientation 4.52 2.24 0 7 2,455
National dailies orientation .93 1.39 0 7 2,455
Tabloid orientation 2.30 2.46 0 7 2,455

Use of different types of alternative media

Category % (weighted) n
Use no alternative media 76.6 1,867
Use left-wing alternative media, low/moderate alternativeness 3.2 81
Use right-wing alternative media, low/moderate alternativeness 7.6 195
Use left-wing and right-wing alternative media, low/moderate alter-nativeness 1.5 38
Use right-wing alternative media, high alternativeness 8.2 208
Use left-wing and right-wing alternative media, high alternativeness 2.9 66
Total 100 2,455

Sociodemographic variables in the analysis weighted and unweighted

Variable Weighted (%) Unweighted (%) n
Gender Female 50.6 52.3 1,283
Male 49.4 47.7 1,172
Age 18–29 17.8 13.9 342
30–39 15.8 13.9 342
40–49 14.5 14.8 363
50–59 20.1 21.5 527
60+ 31.8 35.9 881
Level of education Lower secondary 12.7 12.5 306
General upper secondary 11.8 10.5 257
Vocational 43.7 44.2 1,084
Short-cycle tertiary 5.8 6.1 149
Medium-cycle tertiary 16.6 17.4 426
Long-cycle tertiary 9.4 9.5 233
Residence Outer municipalities 6.3 6.4 158
Rural municipalities 25.1 26.2 644
Middle-range municipalities 16.5 17.1 419
City municipalities 52.1 50.3 1,234

Classification of Danish alternative media

Left-wing Right-wing
High degree of alternativeness

Den Korte Avis

Document

NewSpeek
Low or moderate degree of alternativeness

Konfront

Netavisen Pio

Solidaritet

180Grader

24NYT

ditOverblik

Folkets Avis

Indblik

Kontrast

Measurements of alternative media use in previous studies

Study Method Item(s) and/or number of outlets included Country Estimated share of population using alternative media
Andersen et al., 2021 Survey self-report

“How often do you use online news websites or social media to follow…‘News about societal issues not reported by the traditional media’; ‘News that provide an alternative view on societal issues than traditional media’ [italics original]?”

“How often do you use online news websites or social media to follow news that provide an alternative view than the traditional media on the following topics?” ‘News about crime’; ‘News about the climate and environment’; ‘News about integration and immigration’ [italics original]”.

Scale: never (1), more rarely (2), once a month (3), once a week (4), several times a week (5), daily (6)

 Sweden Across four survey waves, approximately 16% report using alternative media once a week or more often.
Frischlich et al., 2022 Survey self-report

“In recent years, numerous news websites have emerged that often disseminate their content via social media and present themselves as an alternative to the established or ‘mainstream’ media. Which of the following alternative news media, if any, have you used to access news in the past week?”

List of six alternative media provided and a category of “other” alternative news.

 Germany 12%
Müller & Bach, 2021 Digital tracking (2.5 months in 2017; 1 month in 2019) 137 online news sites defined as populist alternative news media. Use defined as at least one visit to the page in the observation periods. Germany

16.5% (2017)

7.4% (2019)
Müller & Schulz, 2021 Survey self-report

List-frequency technique including 12 alternative media with affinity for populism. Respondents were asked whether they knew the outlets and if so, how often they used them.

Scale: never (0) to very frequently (5)

 Germany

Total share of users (use at least one outlet at least “very rarely”): 28.1%

Occasional users (use at least one outlet “very rarely” but none “frequently” or “very frequently”): 12.6%

Frequent users (use at least one outlet “frequently” or “very frequently”): 15.5%
Schulze, 2020 Survey self-report (secondary analysis of 2019 Reuters Institute Digital News Report data)

“In recent years a number of online news sites have emerged with their content often distributed via social media.

Which, if any, of the following have you heard of/used in the last week?” (Item quoted from Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019: 24–25).

Four to seven alternative media included in each country.

Austria

Finland

Germany

Sweden

Use at least one of the listed outlets during the last week:

Austria: 8%

Finland: 7%

Germany: 9%

Sweden: 22%
Steppat et al., 2021 Survey self-report

“Some people are disappointed by political news coverage and have the feeling that the (most frequently used) mainstream media sources do not report information fully. As a result, these people seek out alternative sources of information (e.g. they may seek out sources on the Internet where they can find their opinion better represented or can cross-check information). Do you belong to this group?”

Scale: no, not at all (1), no, mostly not (2), yes, mostly (3), yes, definitely (4) Respondents who answered 3 or 4 were asked to specify up to three alternative media in an open-ended question.

Coded into media categories by the study’s authors, one of which was self-proclaimed alternative media matching the definition in Holt et al., 2019.

Denmark

Switzerland

Italy

Poland

US

Respondents who consider themselves alternative media users and seek out self-proclaimed alternative media, according to the study’s authors’ coding:

Denmark: 16%

Switzerland: 15%

Italy: 11%

Poland: 12%

US: 19%
Theorin & Strömbäck, 2020 Survey self-report

“In general, how often do you visit the following news sites on the Internet?”

List included one right-wing and one left-wing alternative news medium.

Scale: daily (6), 5–6 days a week (5), 3–4 days a week (4), 1–2 days a week (3), more seldom (2), and never (1)

 Sweden

Left-wing outlet:

At least one day a week: 6%

More seldom: 9%

Right-wing outlet:

At least one day a week: 5%

More seldom: 10%
eISSN:
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