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How (and why) publishers can serve audiences’ desire for community

Publishers can benefit by rolling out active community strategies, as audiences sour on social media and yearn for connection, according to research from The Verge.

7th March 2025

A collage of images representing how people interact including people having conversations, emojis and a woman looking at her phone. Image courtesy of The Verge
The Verge commissioned research to understand changes in how people were connecting with information and each other online and offline. Image courtesy of The Verge

In our most recent State of Mobile Publishing report, publishers said their app plans included comments and communities to promote engagement. 

The basic argument for community on media sites is that audiences would come for the content and stay for the comments and other community features. In the post-platform era, publishers are not only relaunching communities on their own properties but also trying to understand why users engage in communities. 

Research commissioned by The Verge, Vox’s technology and culture site, provides a window into the motivations for what audiences are looking to media to provide with their communities in the context of “a post social and emerging AI era”. It’s a great resource and inspiration for publishers considering a community strategy. 

For those still deciding whether to pursue community strategies, the research also found that audiences are willing to pay for “meaningful ways to connect” and highlights several community products that media organisations could develop to grow audiences and add new revenue streams. 

Speaking of community, you can join ours, Mobile Matters, a growing group of professionals who work in mobile publishing. To join, sign up here. Being a member gives you access to the community’s Slack and member-only workshops. 

Kevin & James

Audiences turn to communities for information

By Kevin Anderson

While AI is still the dominant conversation in media innovation, community plays prominently, too. Buzzfeed will launch a new AI-driven social network, CEO Jonah Peretti says. Filipino online news website Rappler built its own community app, and Canada’s Village Media rolled out its social media, Spaces, last year.  

Media companies rebuilding their owned community efforts is partly due to their frustration with social media platforms, but it is also responding to audiences souring on the big social platforms too. 

The research commissioned by The Verge found that 60% of users view social media negatively, feeling they are just “a data point waiting to be sold” and “a number in a giant algo machine”. Three-quarters of the 2000 Americans surveyed felt “more fragmented”, and 90% felt social media as well as news was creating echo chambers and “leading to deeper societal divisions”. 

It shows the opportunities for publishers and media organisations broadly to reclaim the relationship with their audiences, but it also shows unique challenges facing news publishers. 

The research provides more data to reinforce major shifts in digital behaviour, and taken in the context of other data and research, it paints a complicated picture for media. 

And 42% of users said that they find search less useful, and 66% in the survey said “find the quality of information is deteriorating, making it difficult to find reliable sources”. Because of that, more than half (55%) are turning to their community for information rather than relying on search platforms like Google. And 52% of all those surveyed are using AI chatbots or platforms like TikTok to find information, while 61% of Gen Z and Millennials are using AI. 


Internet users are turning away from Google because 76% of those surveyed say that a quarter of their search results when shopping are sponsored or promoted. 

This raises questions for news organisations about how they will drive discovery, particularly with younger audiences. They have been focused on the challenge provided by AI, but the challenge now is that young audiences are turning away from their dominant discovery channel. Data from Chartbeat featured in the 2025 Reuters Institute trends report shows that search is still the dominant way audiences come to news sites. 

Returning to communities, the research highlights challenges and opportunities for publishers. When asked what platforms they used and how they used them, survey participants responded: 

The research found that digital platforms have made things better for fun, relationships and ‘self’ over the past five years, but overall, they made more people feel less connected by 52% to 48%. 

What people want from communities  

The research leaves you with a sense of how online communities are fragmenting amongst a wider range of platforms, newsletters, news apps and media websites. 

For publishers, broadcasters and organisations looking to tap into this hunger for connection, it also highlights what people want from communities and the role content plays. The vast majority (79%) wanted shared goals from those in their communities, with 73% wanting dependability and 59% wanting chemistry. Older generations focused on shared experiences and interests, while Gen Z connected based on humour. 

Community strategies should have a mix of digital and in-person ways to connect. More than half (52%) thought online communities were better for building strong bonds, but also high percentages thought they were better for having fun, making a difference and feeling supported. 

In-person connections were seen as richer (51%), creating a sense of belonging and a positive impact on participants’ lives and better for achieving goals and learning new skills. 

One of the mistakes made in the first generation of community strategies by media companies was that it was perceived as a technical feature rather than an editorial strategy that needed to be managed. It was just the ability to comment, and left unmoderated, they devolved into what many journalists referred to as the ‘Wild West’. 

When asked what the top three features that made a good community were, research participants replied: 

Media communities’ relationship status with AI? It’s complicated

The research also looked at the role of AI in community and content. They found that 81% of the survey participants were actively debating whether content was generated with AI, and almost half said they would want to be part of a community that didn’t allow AI content. 

And 44% said they wanted features in their online communities that were less dependent on algorithms. 

This isn’t to say that AI can’t be brought to bear in supporting media communities. Another popular feature was better moderation (36%), which AI can support. 

Importantly, the research found that more than half of respondents would be willing to pay to be a part of a community, especially one that had exclusive offers (59%), active discussions and ways to support the community or creator (64%) and premium content, personalisation and expert advice (76%). 

This is supported by other research and case studies. The Toronto Star increased registrations by 72% after requiring users to register to comment, and they knew that registered users were 15x more likely to subscribe than unknown users. 

In a time when publishers are looking for new revenue streams to support their businesses, community strategies offer a premium set of features that can build deeper connections with audiences and multiple ways to add to the bottom line. 

Pugpig News

For more on the changes in search behaviour, Pugpig CEO and co-founder Jonny Kaldor spoke to David Buttle in our latest Out of Office podcast episode. He dives deeply into how search behaviour is changing, how this changes how people are discovering content and how this threatens Google’s business. But David is also heading up an effort that Jonny says “could change some of the fundamentals around the relationship between content owners and the platforms”.
This week, we held a webinar with our partner PushPushGo about the report we recently released with them about push notification best practices, and you can watch it on YouTube.

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