How do people in access and rate news and information around #COVID19?

This is the question at the heart of a NEW REPORT we publish today with survey data from those countries.

Key findings in this thread
Full report in this link
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/infodemic-how-people-six-countries-access-and-rate-news-and-information-about-coronavirus

2. News use is up, and most people in most countries are using either social media, search engines, video sites, and messaging applications (or combinations of these) to get news and information about coronavirus. Here are the figures for every country covered by the report

3. News organisations are the most widely used source of information about #COVID19 in almost every country. % for news organisations are higher in

However, those with low levels of formal education are much less likely to say that they rely on news orgs

4. Search, video and social platforms are widely used to access #COVID19 information. Here are some of the most popular by country. Google Search is widely used in . Naver is popular in . Younger & less educated people, who tend to use news less, tend to use platforms more

5. Private groups in social platforms and messaging apps are widely used to discuss #COVID19. These groups primarily include family and friends/colleagues, not strangers. Here are the figures for every country in the report. The % for WhatsApp in is very high

6. Scientists & experts are highly & broadly trusted on #COVID19. News organisations are rated as relatively trustworthy by a majority. % is a bit smaller in . These countries are also the only ones where the national government is not trusted by a majority of the population

7. Top-line figures can obscure pronounced social and political differences in trust. People with lower levels of formal education often trust news less. And especially in the US, people of different political persuasions rate news & government very differently. Look at the chart

8. Most respondents rate platforms as less trustworthy than experts, health authorities & news orgs. Here is the "trust gap" between news orgs. and platforms, on average:

34 points for messaging apps
33 for social
30 for video sites
14 for search

Figures by country here

9. Concern about misinformation is focused on 'bottom-up' false or misleading content spread by ordinary people whom respondents do not know personally. However, respondents in say individual politicians generate large volumes of top-down misinformation

10. Among platforms, concern is focused on social media and messaging apps, where on average about a third of respondents say they have seen a lot or a great deal of false or misleading information in the last week.

% for social and messaging apps are especially high in

11. Overall, a large majority of our respondents say they feel news media have helped them understand the crisis and have explained how they can respond to it.

Governments, on average, rated less well than news organisations in helping people understand the crisis

12. Most people do relatively well when asked a series of factual questions about coronavirus, with a clear majority answering more than half the questions correctly. Using news orgs as source of info is associated with higher knowledge in most countries (not in )

13. The report, authored by @rasmus_kleis @dragz @nicnewman @jsbrennen & @pnhoward, is based on survey data collected by @YouGov from 31 March to 7 April 2020 across .

Download a PDF version here
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-04/Navigating%20the%20Coronavirus%20Infodemic%20FINAL.pdf
Read it here https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/infodemic-how-people-six-countries-access-and-rate-news-and-information-about-coronavirus