Trust in the news has grown, on average, by six percentage points in wake of Coronavirus pandemic.
Across 46 markets, 44% say they trust most news most of the time (back to 2018-levels).
No similar growth for news on e.g social means the "trust gap" with platforms has grown 2/9
Most news media saw a surge in audience during pandemic and lockdowns, but can they retain that audience as situation evolves?
We looked at how many brands have a significantly higher reach in early 2021 than early 2020, and find more trusted brands have often done better. 3/9
Despite trust gap+concerns over misinformation, distributed discovery is growing ever more important as the pandemic has accelerated the move to more digital, mobile, and platform-dominated media environment.
Just 25% say going direct is their main way to access online news. 4/9
As Facebook, while still important, is less used for news, a slew of other platforms are growing in importance.
But on growing networks such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, influencers & alternative sources seem to command more attention than mainstream media+journalists 5/9
There is some increase in payment for online news in a few rich countries.
But the overall percentage of people paying remains low.
Annd in most countries, large proportion of digital subscriptions go to just a few big national brands, reinforcing winner-takes-most dynamics 6/9
Thus, while platforms and some, often big, publishers are doing well, many commercial news media are struggling.
Do the public know, do they find it concerning, and do they want government to step in and support?
Our data suggests that the answers are "no", "no", and "no". 7/9
Beyond this, proud to be able to include more countries in the Global South this year.
Online polling necessarily limited but we can all learn a lot from countries where news media have long faced political attacks, financial precarity, & users oriented towards mobile+social 8/9
Do we need a "New Deal" for journalism? @Forum_InfoD and its chair @cdeloire from @RSF_inter say we do and new report from the Forum looks at policy options - I was honored to chair working group providing input to the report.
In my foreword, I write "if governments want to do more than talk about the value of journalism, and actually help [those] who are leading on forging new ways forward for the profession and the industry, they will need to step up and take real action" 2/19 rasmuskleisnielsen.net/2021/06/16/les…
Whether this is a priority is for the public and its elected officials to decide. As we consider this, I'd highlight (a) there are policies that have proof of concept but (b) at best, most governments have done little or nothing.
June 23, we publish the 2021 @risj_oxford Digital News Report by @nicnewman@richrdfletcher et al, covering 46 markets accounting for more than half of the world's population.
The #ica_gcsc panel "International Collaborations Around COVID-19 Research in Africa During a Pandemic: Struggles With Theory and Method" with Radhika Gajjala et al looks interesting ica2021.cadmore.media/Title/29b6af8f…
#infodemic, one year on. News orgs are the most widely used source of information about coronavirus and have become even more central because-while overall reach has declined compared to earlier in the pandemic-reach of other sources has declined more. reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/ongoing-infode… 1/9
Trust in news orgs declined by an average of 8 percentage points and trust in national governments has declined by average of 13pp. In most countries covered, national health authorities, global health authorities, and scientists+doctors+experts remain highly+broadly trusted 2/9
The 'trust gap' between coronavirus information from news organisations and information on different kinds of platforms remains pronounced. On average, gap btw news orgs and social media is 21pp, btw news and video sites 22pp, and btw news and messaging applications 28pp. 3/9
Ask scientists about peer review, and you’ll get… a lot of things. Boundary work (the institution grounds all scholarship), appreciation (collegial quality control=more rigorous work), and many dark sides (ie it's unreliable, unfair, unpaid, unequal, and done by #reviewer2) 1/19
Let me start here-I've internalized the boundary work. I believe in peer review, for all its imperfections. I think it is among things setting science apart. I've also spend lots of time on it, including dealing with 600+ manuscripts as journal editor, based on ~1000 reviews 2/19
But while important, peer review is not the ONLY thing that define science. Many different norms and institutions together define us. As Ziman writes: “peculiarity of science is that knowledge as such is deemed to be its principle product and purpose” cambridge.org/core/books/rea… 3/19
US Congress yesterday hosted hearing on disinformation & extremism in the media
Journalists should want to interrogate these issue
As @farai writes as"we are questioning all the systems of society, journalism cannot be too prideful to examine itself" faraic.medium.com/its-bigger-tha… 1/5
One place to start is this (scathing) article: "What is being called our post-truth era [illustrates] the racial amnesia that plagues much of our contemporary post-truth criticism" in light of how e.g. media and politics often represent many minorities doi.org/10.1080/147914… 2/5
And this observation by some top-notch social scientists (which to my knowledge has largely been ignored by news coverage?)"Our analysis suggest that mainstream news media in fact play a significant and important role in the dissemination of fake news" doi.org/10.1080/238089… 3/5