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The audience is not one funnel: what Pew’s four engagement groups mean for publishers

Pew’s four engagement groups suggest that publishers need more than one funnel, with apps, audio, newsletters and local services creating different routes into a lasting media relationship.

20th August 2026

The future of media engagement may look less like a funnel and more like a portfolio of products designed for different audience habits.

Publishers have spent years trying to move audiences through a single engagement funnel, from anonymous visitor to registered user, subscriber and, ultimately, loyal customer. However, a July study from the Pew Research Center suggests that people do not all build relationships with news in the same way. For media companies, that raises questions about how products, formats and propositions should create habit and value.

Based on a survey of 5,393 US adults, combined with findings from a separate survey of 5,195 people, Pew identified four patterns of engagement across news, politics, religion and civic life. They defined these as Mobilizers, Connectors, Spectators and Outsiders. The study is not a publisher audience segmentation, but it has useful implications for media companies.

Someone may follow the news closely but rarely comment, attend events or join a community. Another person may be deeply involved in local life without appearing highly engaged in the metrics publishers usually track. This bulletin explores what those different patterns could mean for audience strategy, media products and the role of mobile apps.

Four different patterns of participation

Pew identifies four distinct patterns of engagement. Mobilizers, who make up 9% of U.S. adults, are active across news, politics and civic life. Meanwhile Connectors, at 28%, are also highly involved, though more through community, charitable and religious life than overt political action. Spectators, who account for 31%, may be especially relevant to publishers because they follow national news at relatively high rates but are less likely to participate in more public or institutional ways such as voting, volunteering or contacting elected officials.

Outsiders, also 31%, report lower levels of participation across most of the behaviours Pew measured, including news, politics, religion and community life. But the broader lesson for publishers is that valuable engagement often takes quieter forms than comments, event attendance or membership.

A reader who saves an article, listens to a daily briefing, shares a story privately or returns to a familiar format each morning is still expressing intent and habit. Some of those signals can be measured directly in product data, while others, especially private conversation and off-platform influence, sit outside a publisher’s field of view.

Reaching younger audiences requires a different proposition

Pew’s findings are particularly relevant to publisher’s attempts to reach younger audiences. 46% of adults aged 18 to 29 were classified as Spectators, compared with 31% of US adults overall. This suggests that younger people are still interested in following current events, but they’re less likely to participate in society in the same ways as older generations.

For publishers, the implication is not that younger readers need less journalism, but that they may respond better to formats and products that fit the way they want to consume media. That could mean combining short updates with deeper reporting, audio and visual journalism.

The Audiencers has highlighted Swedish publisher NTM as one example of how publishers can attract younger readers. Rather than relying only on discounted trials, NTM created a free subscription for under-25s and backed it with changes to editorial priorities, distribution and performance measures. By the end of 2025, the initiative had attracted 13,174 subscribers under the age of 25, 90% of whom had no previous relationship with NTM’s brands. The lesson is that a younger-audience strategy may need its own proposition, distribution and measures of success.

If the goal is to build a relationship that lasts for years, immediate revenue will not be the only KPI that matters. Registration, app activation, topic follows, notification opt-in, audio plays, saved stories, return frequency and movement between formats may provide better signals of developing habit. The challenge is to distinguish useful engagement from empty frequency, and to avoid treating every tap or notification open as evidence of loyalty.

Format can be a front door

Different audiences may also need different ways into a publisher’s journalism. The front door may be an article, a podcast, a video, a game, a newsletter or an app experience rather than the homepage and paywall.

The Economist is testing this through Play, a lower-priced subscription tier built around audio, video, subscriber newsletters and games. Launched in Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Play is designed as a format-led entry point to the brand, available through The Economist’s app and website without access to its written journalism.

Early signals suggest that Play is attracting new audiences rather than simply encouraging existing subscribers to trade down. The Economist has also reported an uptick in Premium sign-ups when Play appears alongside the core offer, although the pilot remains at an early stage. Those results should be treated as early evidence rather than proof that a format-led tier will work for every publisher.

This is an interesting departure from the idea that audio, video and games are simply additional benefits within a conventional subscription. Instead, they become a coherent entry product for people whose relationship with the brand begins with listening, watching or playing.

The app is central to that proposition. It gives the publisher an owned environment in which audio, video, newsletters and games can share one identity, recommendation layer and subscription relationship. The opportunity is to make the relationship between formats clear, useful and easy to navigate.

For some Spectators, that lower-commitment, format-led proposition may be more attractive than unlimited access to article content. It also gives publishers an opportunity to create progression between products, rather than expecting everyone to enter through the same article and paywall journey.

To do this, the product needs solve a recognisable audience need. A lower-priced tier needs a distinct use case, such as making sense of the news during a commute, providing a daily audio briefing, offering a useful visual explainer or creating a lighter but more habitual relationship with the brand.

Local publishers can become part of community infrastructure

Pew’s Connectors offer insight into another important audience group. These people participate actively in community, charitable or religious life but are less likely to engage in formal politics. Local publishers are well placed to serve them, particularly when their products extend beyond a conventional stream of articles.

Chicago Public Media is exploring this idea through a network of neighbourhood communities on chicago.com. Built with Roundabout, the product will combine local conversations, events, newsletters and community stewards. Its ambition is to organise local information and discussion in one place and is described as a community platform rather than a news website. When it debuted in July, it attracted more than 1,000 email signups in its first two days, with around a third coming from people that were not already on other email lists.

The initiative is still at an early stage, but it demonstrates how publishers can position themselves as part of the civic infrastructure of a place, particularly when their digital products support participation rather than simply distributing stories.

Events, recommendations, neighbourhood information, local directories and moderated discussion may not look like traditional journalism products. They can nevertheless create repeated reasons for residents to use and trust a publisher. A mobile app can make those services more useful by combining timely alerts with persistent local features and a simple way to move between information, conversation and action.

A different version of the same idea can be seen in YubaNet’s new Pugpig mobile app. Serving Nevada County, California, it combines real-time wildfire and emergency coverage, live community updates and an events calendar. The value is not limited to reading an article. The app becomes a practical local service that readers can return to when they need timely information.

The funnel is becoming a portfolio

The traditional funnel is unlikely to disappear. Publishers will still need to move anonymous profiles into registered users and, ultimately, paying subscribers.

Mobilizers may value depth, specialist reporting, live journalism, events and opportunities to participate. Connectors may respond to local utility, community information and products rooted in place. Spectators may prefer private, low-friction ways to save, listen to and share journalism, often through a mobile app. Outsiders may need a clearer reason to establish a news habit before registration or subscription becomes relevant.

This makes the media product portfolio increasingly important. Articles, apps, newsletters, audio, video, games, events and community features should not be treated as interchangeable engagement tools. Each can serve a different audience and perform a different job, while the app can provide a consistent layer of identity, personalisation and discovery across them.

The opportunity for publishers is not simply to push every reader towards the behaviour of today’s most active users. It is to understand the different ways people already participate, then design products that make each relationship more useful, habitual and valuable.