News media more trusted than governments for covid information
During the pandemic, trust in news organisations has declined by an average of eight percentage points (pp), but trust in national governments has declined by an average of 13pp, a study from the Reuters Institute shows.
It comprises eight countries and says that in almost all countries, news organisations are the single most widely used source of information about coronavirus. Countries included are Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain, the UK, and the US.
“National health authorities, global health authorities, and scientists, doctors, or other health experts, remain highly and broadly trusted, though this trust has declined somewhat too, especially in Argentina and the United States.”
SOCIAL MEDIA
“The trust gap between coronavirus information from news organisations and information on different kinds of platforms remains pronounced.”
On average, the gap between news organisations and social media is 21pp, between news and video sites 22pp, and between news and messaging applications 28pp.
The gap is six points on average between news and search engines, but in Japan the gap is not statistically significant, and in Argentina and Brazil search engines are trusted more for news and information about COVID-19.
POLITICIANS
“On average, 35% of respondents across the eight countries say they think they have seen a lot or a great deal of false or misleading information from individual politicians.”
“On average, 30% say they think they have seen ‘a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ of false or misleading information about coronavirus on social media.”
VACCINE
As encouraging, the study finds that more than 90% do not believe any of five false claims about vaccine that were included in the survey. The study says that using news organisations as a source for news and information about coronavirus is significantly associated with lower belief in vaccine misinformation in all eight countries covered.
“In contrast, relying on messaging applications for information about coronavirus is significantly associated with higher misinformation belief in seven countries.”
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