London – A survey in four countries, including Brazil, shows that confidence in the news is all too low when it comes to addressing political issues.
The research, led by the Reuters Institute for Journalistic Studies, surveyed people in Brazil, as well as the US, UK and India, and showed that political news is viewed as particularly suspicious and arousing greater public distrust.
While the average trust in news in the four countries is 56%, this rate drops to 45% when news content is political. The biggest drop is in Brazil when it comes to trust in political news, with the overall news confidence index falling from 46% to 27%.
Confidence in political news in Brazil is 40% lower than in general news
Of the four analyzed countries, Brazilians have the lowest confidence in both general news and political news.
Among the confidence indices of general and political news, Brazilians showed the biggest decline. Confidence in political news is over 40% lower than in general news.
Of the four countries analyzed, India had the highest level of confidence in both general news and political news.
Overall, according to the news, the decline in confidence in political news was similar in both India and the UK and the US, hovering around 15% – about three times less than the decline in Brazil.
Trust the news of the young more than the old
The research categorizes trust by age and found that young people under 35 tend to trust news more generally than older people over 35.
Brazilians are the least confident in the news in the comparison between both the youngest and the oldest. The most confident in both age groups are Indians.
Among the four countries analyzed, Brazil is the only country with confidence indices below 50% for both age groups.
Brazil was the country with the biggest drop in confidence indexes for its youngest and oldest news, with seven points. The country to which these ratios are closest is the United Kingdom.
More than those without a degree of confidence in alumni news
When stratified by education level, in the four countries studied, those with a tertiary education degree have a higher degree of confidence in their news than those without.
Brazil has the lowest level of confidence in news among those with a tertiary education degree. Americans, on the other hand, are the least reliant on the news among those without a degree.
Indians generally have the highest confidence in news of the two surveyed groups.
North Americans offer the biggest difference between the two groups’ confidence indices. The rate of graduates who trust the news is 50% higher than those without a diploma.
More than half of those surveyed believe that journalists are trying to manipulate the public to serve politicians.
At least 50% of respondents in each country believe that journalists are trying to manipulate the public to serve the agendas of powerful politicians. This perception is most pronounced in India, where around six in ten respondents say they believe it.
The study notes that these negative perceptions are often concentrated among those who rely less on the news, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States.
This pattern was different in Brazil and India; people who relied more on news were more likely to have not only positive but also negative perceptions about journalists. For researchers, this fact may reflect the disconnect between trust in information and what people think about journalism practices.
Brazilians with the lowest negative perception of journalists
In addition to an alleged role in the service of powerful politicians, the survey also assessed other negative perceptions of journalists. And Brazilians presented themselves as the least critical journalists in relation to the other countries surveyed.
Those who were most critical of the journalists’ performance were the Indians, although it was precisely those who had the highest confidence in the news.
The biggest criticism of journalists was that they were more interested in getting attention than facts. This view was shared by more than half of people in the countries surveyed, with the exception of Brazil, where it had the highest percentage of negative perceptions assessed (47%).
In the other two negative perceptions, Brazil followed a different course than other countries. More Brazilians feel that journalists are careless and sloppy about what they write or report on, than are convinced that journalists are in the profession just for money.
In the other three countries analyzed, media professionals are more likely to think they are in the profession for money than see them as sloppy or careless.
The highest proportion of Indians who felt that journalists were more concerned with money were among Indians, echoing the country’s ongoing concerns about paid news, according to the study.
More positive perception of journalists in India and Brazil
Brazilians and Indians presented both positive and negative opposing views of the journalists. In both countries, the highest rates of positive perception of media professionals among the four analyzed countries were confirmed.
In the UK and the US, where positive perceptions were lowest, less than 40% of respondents said they believed journalists had independently verified the information they were reporting, or made an effort to prevent their opinions from distorting the news.
Research figures reflect that individuals who rely on news are more likely to have positive perceptions of journalists.
For example, in India, 59% of those who trust the news and only 36% of those who don’t share the positive perception that journalists try to prevent their opinions from distorting the news.
In the United States, the contrast is even more striking. 54% of those who trust the news believe that the news is not distorted by the opinions of the journalists. Among those who do not trust the news, the proportion of those who share this perception drops by a third to just 18%.
Also Read | Polarization is causing 2 in 3 Brazilians to avoid political discussions online and offline, according to survey
source: Noticias
