60 OVER THE TOP Trust in Media
WHO TO A recent EBU report said broadcast is Europe’s most trusted news source. But trust doesn’t mean what it used to Note that the report measures the level of trust the public has for a given media, not its level of accuracy or reliability. The Nordics and Benelux countries, and Ireland, have high levels of trust in their national news; France, Spain, Greece and Switzerland reported low trust in their were from Albania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Sweden had the lowest level of trust for the internet, with 71% of respondents saying they tend not to trust it (although in 2017-2018 it was 76%). Other countries reporting a high level of internet mistrust were France, Ireland, the UK, Spain and Germany. Words by Neal Romanek
national news, and the rest of the European countries polled registering a medium level of trust. One of the most significant points made in the report was that greater trust in news correlated with greater satisfaction with a country’s democracy. The near cliched example is that the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland all report high satisfaction with their democracy (and many other countries look at those democracies enviously) and they registered the highest trust in their news media. Radio was the medium that European citizens reported the highest trust in across the continent, and most countries expressed a high trust of the news they heard on the radio, with that trust having grown over the past five years. However, the interesting exceptions were Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, who all reported ‘no trust’ in the radio news in their countries. INTERNET MISTRUST On the other hand, trust in the internet is on the wane, according to the report. The highest levels of trust in internet factually
According to the EBU Trust in Media report, in Turkey, 58% of those polled said they tended not to trust information on the internet. But, remarkably, that is a significant decrease from five years ago. While most other countries experienced a significant or at least a limited increase in their mistrust of internet information, Turkey’s trust in the internet increased by more than ten points. Trust in social media networks had even worse numbers. Albania and Hungary had the highest levels of trust in social networks, with 54% and 51% respectively, saying they tended not to trust them. On the other end of the spectrum was, again, Sweden, with 82% of the population saying they didn’t trust them. The immediate conclusion one would draw is that European residents see the internet and social media technologies as problematic for living in a fact-rich society – or at least as a place you would avoid if you expect to become well-informed. The EBU report seems to paint a clear picture of a Europe shunning the internet in favour of the TV news and radio.
he European Broadcasting Union has issued a report that claims broadcasting is the most trusted media outlet in Europe.
It’s a bit of a self-serving exercise for the broadcasting union to say, but it’s true that Europe – along with other digitally advanced regions around the world – is coming to the realisation that ubiquitous digital connection doesn’t automatically produce truth and knowledge. The report’s top-line summation says: “There is a noticeable trust gap between broadcast and new media. While radio and TV are the most trusted media among EU citizens, the internet and social networks are trusted the least.” But there is a deeper and more subtle point to be made: although EU citizens say they have greater mistrust of internet news sources, they are relying on online sources for their news more and more. The EBU report – based on the EU’s Standard Eurobarometer 90 report, which surveys European public opinion on a variety of issues – opens with a now widely accepted truism about the current relationship between media and the digitally connected public: “In the age of media abundance, trust is important in the relationship between media and their audience. However, maintaining a high level of trust is more and more challenging in a world of filter bubbles, echo chambers and disinformation.”
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