Trust in the media
June 1st, 2007 · 2 Comments
A recent comment to this blog claimed that "all the available evidence" says the Internet is more trusted as a news/information source than traditional media, which is not quite true. In fact, polls and studies in many countries seem to show that the Internet is the least trusted of all news outlets (see here, for example). Recent polls from Sweden (a country with a very high Internet penetration rate) places online news squarely at the bottom of the trust scale, after all traditional news sources (Swedish public service television comes at the top).
However, this does not tell the whole story either: as I pointed out in my previous post, online information sources are heavily used and seem to be more trusted under certain circumstances, like in times of crisis. This point is expanded upon here. That paper also points to the potential problems of the "unfiltered" character of the Internet, i.e. that you also get lots of unverified (and indeed unverifiable) rumor and gossip masquerading as "news".
Trust in the media is also not static - it depends on when and in what context you measure it. Following a big media gaffe, trust in traditional media declines (of course). Trust is different in different demographic groups (young people distrust traditional news sources more and place more trust in the Internet than older people), and in different countries (the poll quoted above also shows that trust in online news is quite high in South Korea, for example).
I think it is clear that things are changing, but the question remains at what pace things are changing. Saying that "all the available evidence" says that the Internet is the most trusted news source is simply not true. Yet.
Tags: Sweden · Online · Research · New media · Online news
2 responses so far ↓
Antony // Jun 2, 2007 at 11:21 pm
As the commenter Henrik refers to, I must point out that I didn’t say that people trust the Internet more as a news source than traditional media. What I said was that people don’t trust the mediation of institutions. And for certain things (for instance, which book to read, which gizmo to buy), they trust the recommendations of friends over “news” that may well an advertisement in masquerade.
In any case, people don’t trust journalists. For example, see here. Journalists are right down there with politicians.
It’s true that people don’t trust “the Internet,” but that’s like saying people don’t (or do) trust other people. Context is key. They trust some people, and they trust some of the Internet — for instance, blogs where they feel they know and understand the author. It’s a more personal connection, and I was trying to distinguish between the trust people place in an institution (e.g., a newspaper) and that they place in a known person — whether that person is known in real life, or virtually.
In addition, it’s probably useful to carve out a difference between different kinds of news. I’m more likely to trust the New York Times than my local NYC blog when it comes to reporting a remote event (e.g., the recent Thai court decision banning a political party), but I’ll take the blog any time when it comes to the shenanigans of the local police precinct. In this case, I know that the NY Times has a long and complicated relationship with the city government (in many ways, it is part of the government) — it needs continued access to inside sources, its executives are friends with the mayor, and and so on. But my local blog doesn’t give a damn. I may want to verify the veracity of the blog’s information, but I’m not worried that they’re pulling their punches or “underreporting” an incident, or giving the official equivocations equal weight in the interests of “fairness.”
The Reuters story I link to, which matches my personal experience, shows that while people may trust the press to report facts, they absolutely do not trust journalists to tell the truth. There is a difference.
Henrik // Jun 4, 2007 at 8:05 am
I am sorry I misrepresented your argument: trust in institutions is going down across the board, and has indeed done so since the 1960s. It’s worth noting that trust in specific institutions vary, though: in Sweden, banks have traditionally been very trusted but when trust was measured the year in which there had been a number of banking scandals, trust in banks of course went down. And the next year, trust in banks was almost back up to pre-scandal level.
And of course one cannot treat “the Internet” as a whole (just as one cannot treat “institutions” or “media” as a whole) - I think we seem to agree on that traditional news media will remain important, and yes, in some ways “trusted”, in the online environment - news outlets like the New York Times and the BBC are brands that work like any other brand.
It is also absolutely true that journalists are not very trusted as a professional group - and I think it is interesting that people will trust media institutions more than those who work in the media. Clearly, we do need more sophisticated measures of trust - measures that take into account different types of trust, different types of institutions and differences between media.
A side note: a recent study of trust in media, professional groups, and other institutions in Italy I saw recently (unfortunately I cannot link to it since it has not been published yet) at least had some comforting news for journalists: at least they were more trusted than priests!
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