The online environment dramatically expands the number of ways people can encounter news but there remain questions of whether these abundant opportunities facilitate news exposure diversity. This project examines key questions regarding how internet users arrive at news and what kinds of news they encounter. We account for a multiplicity of avenues to news online, some of which have never been analyzed: (1) direct access to news websites, (2) social networks, (3) news aggregators, (4) search engines, (5) webmail, and (6) hyperlinks in news. We examine the extent to which each avenue promotes news exposure and also exposes users to news sources that are left leaning, right leaning, and centrist. When combined with information on individual political leanings, we show the extent of dissimilar, centrist, or congenial exposure resulting from each avenue. We rely on web browsing history records from 636 social media users in the US paired with survey self-reports, a unique data set that allows us to examine both aggregate and individual-level exposure. Visits to news websites account for about 2 percent of the total number of visits to URLs and are unevenly distributed among users. The most widespread ways of accessing news are search engines and social media platforms (and hyperlinks within news sites once people arrive at news). The two former avenues also increase dissimilar news exposure, compared to accessing news directly, yet direct news access drives the highest proportion of centrist exposure.

在线环境极大地增加了人们接触新闻的方式，但这些丰富的机会是否促进了新闻曝光的多样性仍然存在问题。该项目研究了有关互联网用户如何获取新闻以及他们遇到的新闻类型的关键问题。我们考虑了多种在线新闻渠道，其中一些渠道从未被分析过：(1) 直接访问新闻网站，(2) 社交网络，(3) 新闻聚合器，(4) 搜索引擎，(5) 网络邮件, 和 (6) 新闻中的超链接。我们研究了每个途径促进新闻曝光的程度，以及将用户暴露于左倾、右倾和中间派的新闻来源。当与个人政治倾向的信息相结合时，我们显示了每个途径导致的不同、中间或相投的暴露程度。我们依赖来自美国 636 名社交媒体用户的网络浏览历史记录以及调查自我报告，这是一个独特的数据集，使我们能够检查总体和个人层面的曝光率。新闻网站的访问量约占 URL 总访问量的 2%，并且在用户之间分布不均。获取新闻最普遍的方式是搜索引擎和社交媒体平台（以及人们访问新闻后新闻网站内的超链接）。与直接访问新闻相比，前两条途径也增加了不同的新闻曝光率，