Social networks
Email and social networks like Facebook have become very important means for personal communication.
According to an IPSOS survey from the 3rd quarter of 2016, 87 percent of the population (18+) regard themselves as YouTube users. Almost the same number (82 percent) are Facebook users. For other social media the figures are: Snapchat users, 52 percent; Instagram users, 43 percent; Google+ users, 28 percent; Linkedin users, 26 percent; Twitter users, 25 percent and Pinterest users: 14 percent.
It is of course difficult to define a “user” for the different media. Most of the YouTube users are passive consumers, while the users of Facebook frequently are active creator of texts (in the broad media studies sense of “text”).
Along with search engines, the social media have also become important channels for advertising, but it is difficult to find exact figures. In the debate, however, Google and Facebook are mentioned among the important explanations for the fall of advertising revenues for the traditional media.
Journalists, newspapers and many radio and television channels and programmes distribute information on social media, like Facebook. In 2016 there was a debate about censorship on Facebook when the famous picture of the nine year-old Kim Phúc fleeing from American napalm bombing in the Vietnam war in 1972 (photo: Nick Ut/AP) was removed from an article that was shared on Facebook by the Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg.