These slides come from our recent survey report - find more here:
globalstrategygroup.com/2025/10/27/e...

I don't think "passive news consumption" is a new or a social media phenomenon. But the growing role of recommendation engines means everyone is getting more of what they "seem to want" so passive/active may be come a more politically salient difference than it ever has been.

Something somewhat counter-intuitive is "passive news consumer" is not a very distinctive type of social media user--tho there are notable exceptions (less X/Reddit, more TikTok). But they get less news online probably due to a mix of who they follow & what algos think they want.

These news consumption habits are closely related to political engagement, but not identical. "Do you seek out the news" means something slightly different than "is politics important to you."

My sense is it will be hard for people to add House seats in Texas this year. But generally Dem poor turnout and weakness at the House level was in safe Dem seats, not competitive seats where they did well almost everywhere relative to Harris. That’s partly why there are so many Trump-seat-Dems.

What part did you find over complicated?

And here’s the NYT piece I mentioned at the top: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/o...

Most of the report and points above can be found at the link here: globalstrategygroup.com/2025/04/15/u...

This debate about opt-in vs opt-out/news engagement is not just about reaching difficult to reach audiences. The “news comes to me”/opt-out voters care most about different issues, may respond to diff message/branding. Less about concept of “democracy, foreign policy—more about taxes & health care.

Dems have to contend w/the “engagement divide” too. We found the *only* major demo/political group that trusted “the media” was solid Dems. Disengaged voters are deeply distrustful. Related factors. But professional Ds (like me) must view world less like top bar in this chart, more like the bottom.

But disengaged voters, which are mostly on the margins of Trump’s coalition, are the ones to watch now. See what we found below: DOGE/Musk/Econ policies earn much less support from new, less engaged Trump voters. These issues likely become a wedge for Trump coalition.

Trump won most of the disengaged voters in 2024. The sort of voter who thought Obama was cool but didn’t love “politics” (or politicians). This made Trump’s otherwise narrow victory unusually disruptive of politics as usual. Political engagement seems closely related to news engagement (no surprise)

Rather than follow the lines of politics, news engagement cuts across them. And importantly it does a lot to divide the voters we (and they) need to solidify and persuade from those who are bought in. This divide has probably always existed, but media trends have likely deepened it. From our study:

What’s different about this question from many Qs in politics, is the *lack* of polarization—by party or by race. This dimension, which we can call “news engagement,” cuts across other dimensions, and tells us something your party & demographics alone cannot. Makes a potentially powerful tool.

We at GSG discussed this recently in a report reviewing media consumption trends, which I’ll link below. Here’s a question we’ve started asking more often: When it comes to news about current events and politics, do you … seek it out, or does news come to you?

What do you notice?