| Summary: | We still have much to learn about how the rise of new, ‘distributed’ forms of news
access via search engines, social media, and aggregators are shaping people’s news
use. We analyse passive web tracking data from the UK to make a comparison
between direct access (primarily determined by self-selection) and distributed access
(determined by a combination of self-selection and algorithmic selection). We find
that (i) people who use search engines, social media, and aggregators for news have
more diverse news repertoires. However, (ii) social media, search engine, and
aggregator news use is also associated with repertoires where more partisan outlets
feature more prominently. The findings add to the growing evidence challenging the
existence of filter bubbles, and highlight alternative ways of characterizing people’s
online news use.
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