Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC Releases New Report on Media Consumption Among Asian Americans
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last week, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC (Advancing Justice – AAJC), in conjunction with our partners at the University of Michigan School of Information, released findings from quantitative research exploring how members of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community consume online information: Converging Exposures, Divergent Experiences: Asian Americans, News and Information Seeking, and the Circulation of Problematic Narratives Online.
There exists very limited formal research into how the information consumption habits of AANHPI communities differ those of the broader American public, as most national studies are conducted exclusively in English and often do not contain high enough proportions of Asian Americans for this group to be listed as a separate demographic category. This study shares findings from a multilingual survey of 2,000 individuals nationwide, 1,750 of whom who self-identified as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islanders, and provides important baseline research for how AAHNPI communities access news online. It builds off findings from a related focus group report, Beyond Language Translation, published in April 2025. This latest study found that:
Asian Americans’ media diets are distinct from those of the general U.S. population and are greatly shaped by ethnicity and immigrant generation, language preference, and, at times, language proficiency. As such, there is a great desire among Asian Americans for more culturally-relevant news sources.
Experiences with, and exposure to, misinformation among Asian Americans were similar to those of the general U.S. population, with some exceptions. While all respondents reported moderate to high exposure to made-up news, higher rates of English-language proficiency correlated with higher exposure rates as well as higher confidence in recognizing made-up news.
Age, language, education, immigrant generation, and race/ethnicity (especially Asian American vs. NHPI), greatly shaped levels of concern as well as individual attitudes and behaviors. Those with more English-language proficiency tended to be more confident in addressing misinformation concerns, whereas those with more education were less confident, nonintuitively. Age also proved to be a significant factor in concern levels and attributing responsibility to various institutions.
“Understanding the online media consumption patterns of communities is critical for everything from shaping civic engagement strategies to crafting digital literacy curriculum. Until now, there has not existed data-driven research focusing on how the broader AANHPI community across generations, ethnic groups, and English-language abilities consume information and engage with harmful online narratives,” said Lia Nitake, Senior Director of Technology, Telecommunications and Media Policy at Advancing Justice – AAJC. “This study allowed us to better understand the experiences of individuals who are often overlooked or homogenized and test assumption often made off of anecdotal evidence and personal experiences.”
With local news outlets increasingly under threat and artificial intelligence tools fundamentally changing how individual access information, we look forward to continuing work that explores how to best safeguard AANHPIs from misinformation and other digital threats.
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