Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology on trust in news providers
New, impartial briefing published on trends and patterns in trust in news providers including social media, factors associated with trust and areas for consideration.
We’re increasingly getting our news online, according to a comprehensive new briefing from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). The authors report that online news has overtaken traditional media: 71% of adults in the UK consumed news online this year, 70% via TV.
Photo by Austin Distel
Online platforms such as social media make it quick and easy to keep up-to-date with news. We are ever more connected to what’s going on. Yet recent events, such as the rioting in parts of the UK last month, show the dangers of misinformation, posted on and then quickly spread across social media. Just last year, UNESCO researchers found a ‘high prevalence’ of false or misleading information on such platforms.
The new POST briefing digs into this, based on reviews of relevant literature and interviews with a range of key stakeholders in this area. The briefing has also been externally peer-reviewed prior to publication.
The result is a wide-reaching and insightful guide to this urgent topic. While the focus on social media is timely, the briefing places that aspect in the context of a wider issue: declining levels of trust in our traditional media. For example, the World Values Survey found that confidence in the UK press significantly dropped in the 1980s and has never recovered. Could this be fuelling the move to alternative news sources such as those online, which are less subject to regulation and checking?
The authors of the briefing admit that this is a complex subject and there is a lack of data on what drives trust in news. Yet they note links between lack of trust and the uptake of social media, as well as factors such as lack of diversity and representation in traditional media, and the impact of wider political events.
Despite the changing ways we consume news, research by Ofcom suggests that TV and radio news – which it regulates – remains the source most trusted by the public. Print news is overseen by voluntary regulation and some other news sources, such as self-publishing journalists, are not regulated at all.
The briefing covers efforts to improve the situation. After all, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is required to ‘create a broadcasting and media system fit for the 21st century’ while regulator Ofcom must prioritise, ‘media we trust and value.’ Efforts to put that into action include accreditation schemes, initiatives to improve the news literacy of audiences, and steps to address issues with funding models for journalism, standards in the sector and gaps in the regulatory framework.
With Parliament due to resume this week, and the new Labour government promising an ambitious legislative programme to tackle a wide range of challenges, this is a timely and useful guide.
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