Public confidence in news media has steadily declined in recent years. In fact, according to a poll conducted by communications marketing firm Edelman, it’s hit an all-time low in 17 countries.
The media is not the only institution dealing with trust issues. The Edelman firm has dubbed 2017 the year of “Trust in Crisis,” as faith in business, government, and NGOs has also plummeted.
Trust in media
Survey findings show that the media is distrusted in 82% of the 28 countries polled. The study, conducted in the last quarter of 2016, surveyed more than 33,000 respondents.
In most countries, trust levels decreased from the previous year, with particularly dramatic drops in the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, and Mexico. Trust levels in other countries also fell significantly, with decreases of 10% in Canada, Australia, Ireland, and Colombia.
The country that fared the worst was Turkey, where trust levels came in at a dismal 25%. Russia didn’t do much better, falling to 31%, but nor did the UK at 32%. For comparison, the US sat at 47%, unchanged from the previous year, while news outlets in China, India, and Indonesia maintained high levels of public confidence, despite an 8% drop for China.
Trust levels also varied by media source. People expressed more confidence in search engines and traditional media than in owned media or social media. In fact, 64% reported high trust levels in search engines. Since 2012, confidence in search engines has increased, while faith in both traditional media and social media has gradually declined.
The Edelman report identifies a more general fear that the system is failing as part of growing skepticism toward the media. Media echo chambers, which reinforce rather than challenge existing fears and opinions, exacerbate this distrust.
The paradox of social media
When we look at other polls, the picture becomes even more complex.
A lot has changed over the last decade, including the media landscape itself. One of the most obvious changes is how people access news. According to Pew Research Center, about nine out of ten Americans get some of their news online, most with mobile devices. This is a significant increase since 2007 when only two-thirds of respondents reported accessing online news.
As the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 shows, this is a global trend. The report highlights findings from a YouGov survey of more than 70,000 people across 36 countries. Results show that among 18- to 24-year-olds, 64% use online media as their main source of news. Older groups are less likely to do so, but numbers hover around the 50% mark for audiences between ages 25 and 44.
Another dramatic shakeup stems from the diversification of news sources. The Digital News Report also revealed that a third of those in 18 to 24 age bracket now rely on social media as their main news source, and 21% of those aged 25 to 34.
But although people are increasingly dependent on social media for news, they’re also extremely wary. The survey found that just one-quarter of respondents thought social media did a good job of separating fact from fiction. That’s even worse than trust rates in news media, polled at 40%.
This is what we might call the paradox of social media. It makes news pervasive and people depend on it more, but they also have low confidence in it. This is a curious fact. Shouldn’t traditional media look better in comparison and earn a higher trust level as a result? As the Digital News Report speculates, skepticism toward online sources may have spilled over into the public’s confidence in traditional media outlets.
If true, the news isn’t all bad. It means there’s hope for media outlets that promote a clear distinction between the jumble of real and fake news that appears on social media and traditional professional publications.
Political polarization
The Digital News Report also revealed a correlation between distrust and political polarization. Its findings differed from Edelman’s, showing South Korea rather than Turkey at the bottom of the confidence scale, with only 23% of respondents expressing trust in the media. The US also did worse, hitting only 38%, while Turkey received a marginally higher trust level at 40%.
But at the same time, over half of respondents in the US expressed trust in the sources they relied on for news. In other words, they had low confidence in the media in general, but relatively high trust in their preferred news sources.
This points to an interesting trend in the data. In countries with news outlets distributed across a broader, more extreme political spectrum, public confidence in the media is low. It’s higher in countries like Germany, where most news outlets huddle around the middle of the spectrum.
In polarized political climates, the media tends to become polarized as well, reinforcing the views of their main readership while pushing others to the margins. This can be exacerbated by media consolidation and worsened by the echo chamber of news on social media, which tends to show users news that confirms their existing opinions.
The only way to break this echo chamber is by including diverse political viewpoints and considering counterarguments in fair and accurate ways.
The good news
Is there hope that the relationship between the public and the media can be restored?
The good news is that there are bumps in the downward spiral of public confidence in news media. Although the general trend is negative, trust levels have sometimes shown marginal improvement year to year—indicating the situation can be turned around.
Without public trust, there is no news, just private opinions and political propaganda. In the babble of voices online, it’s difficult to walk the line between conforming to new trends and maintaining a distinct and professional identity. But now more than ever, in this extremely politically charged climate, it’s vital that media outlets improve how the public perceives them, and regain public confidence in the news.
Can The Trust Project’s Plan to Win Back Audiences Work?
By Jenna OwsianikThe news industry is dealing with some serious trust issues. Yet even as confidence in the global media sinks to an all-time low, hopes for regaining it are far from lost.
The Trust Project, comprised of a consortium of news organizations and tech platforms, have a plan to win back audiences by sharing more information behind the creation of news stories online.
Staging a comeback
Led and created by Sally Lehrman, the senior director of journalism ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, The Trust Project began growing roots in 2015 and officially launched in November 2017.
First on the agenda was to determine what consumers value in news and what makes them trust it.
Over two years, researchers conducted dozens of interviews across Europe and the United States to get the information they wanted. Then with collaborators from more than 75 new organizations, the initiative devised a set of digital standards meant to increase accountability and transparency.
They agreed on eight core “Trust Indicators” to roll out to help identify and surface high-quality journalism:
To see an early example of the Trust Indicators applied to a news story, view this mockup.
Notably, The Trust Project’s scope extends beyond online news sites. Through partnerships with tech giants like Facebook and Google, the goal is to send such platforms machine-readable signals they can incorporate into what articles they display and how.
The following video shows how Facebook plans to display the indicators on articles in its News Feed:
Will it work?
The Trust Project’s goal to restore confidence in the news media, while cutting through misinformation and fake news, is commendable. Pairing abysmal trust scores with publishers’ rocky transition to digital (if they have survived long enough to get that far), many online news outlets are sitting in precarious positions. Implementing strategies that could both bring them more traffic and rebuild their public credibility would be like killing two very threatening birds with one stone.
However, at this point incorporating the eight core indicators may translate into little more than a well-meaning gesture.
According to Laura Hazard Owen of Nieman Lab, the first publishers that will display the Trust Indicators alongside its content will include:
The leanings of the majority of the above publications are left or center-left, excluding The Independent Journal Review, The Economist, and German Press Agency.
To complicate matters further, in countries such as the US and UK, which The 2017 Digital News Report shows have both polarized political and media climates, consumers are more likely to trust news sources that correspond to their own political leanings. This is true even though consumers in both countries show low trust levels in news outlets overall.
It is then questionable whether adding more context behind the creation of a Washington Post article would make it appear more credible to a right-wing conservative. Nevertheless, perhaps the widespread adoption of the Trust Indicators across diverse online publications could make audiences with different political views more open to reading articles from publishers they would normally avoid.
Uncertain future for tech partnerships
Tech giants Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Bing are already onboard with The Trust Project. In an article in The Atlantic published in May, Lehrman said:
How these collaborations will affect search engine results and social news feeds is not yet clear. Again, Owen notes that there have been no public promises from the platforms regarding whether their algorithms will give preference to publishers using the Trust Indicators.
As the small group of first wave of publishers roll them out, favoring The Trust Project collaborators could also be criticized as an unfair advantage. Small and independent publishers won’t be given the opportunity to join in the foreseeable future, which could significantly harm traffic flow from social media and search engines. However, this outcome rests on the assumption that technology platforms will, in fact, give preference to the Trust Indicators.
In the end, what’s most important about the project is the intent not only to create a standardized method to assess trustworthiness, but that this will eventually help raise the quality of online journalism overall.
Restoring public confidence in the media will be no simple task that one initiative will likely be able to tackle on its own. As The Trust Project launches and new reports and statistics on poor trust levels continue to emerge, the global media certainly has its work cut out for itself. It’s time, more than ever, to keenly monitor the impact of such strategies and keep dialogue open on how they can be improved, refined, and built upon.
6 characteristics of education of the future and how credentials will change
By Ross DawsonThe Commonwealth Bank Jobs and Skills of the Future Report I wrote recently dug into how work and jobs are changing and what skills will be required. These shifts in work mean it is crystal clear that education must also change.
Below is an excerpt from the report giving a snapshot of some of the shifts needed in education:
Education of the Future
Looking further into the future of education, we may see a radical restructuring of how we learn, not just in schools and universities, but through our entire life. Classrooms will continue to exist, enhanced through the use of a wide range of new tools, technologies and methodologies. Education will also become an ongoing part of everyone’s lives, and embedded into our employment, helping us improve our skills and capabilities while we work.
Read more →
A practical strategy framework to drive useful action and high performance
By Ross DawsonLast week I ran a three-day strategy workshop in Dubai for a group of senior executives who are marked as the next generation of leaders in a global professional services firm.
The heart of the workshop used scenario thinking to broaden their perspectives on change and strategic opportunity in their industry. We also wanted to provide a useful framework for the executives to develop and implement effective strategies for their respective country operations.
I was not able to find any strategy frameworks that were sufficiently relevant and pragmatic, so created a summary framework designed to be useful to any executives or entrepreneurs who need to develop practical, actionable strategies. I distilled the approaches and frames I have been successfully using for facilitating strategy development over the years with many executive groups, bringing it together into a succinct 6-step guide.
See below the diagram for a detailed explanation of the framework.
Read more →
The potential and dangers of the ‘autonomous economy’ where machines transact with machines
By Ross DawsonAustralia’s largest bank Commonwealth Bank has just released a very interesting white paper Welcome to the machine-to-machine economy, anticipating machines engaging in financial transactions with other machines or parties, for example hiring and paying for their own maintenance workers. This would require them to have their own bank accounts and payment systems.
Source: Commonwealth Bank
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“Inspiring and terrifying” perspectives on leadership for the future of work
By Ross DawsonI was honored to recently give a Special Lecture at Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY, on Leadership for the Future of Work.
I discussed how in a world in which work is dramatically changing, we must all show leadership in taking the actions that will shape as positive a future as possible for society.
Two articles on my keynote captured some of the points I made.
A piece in The Statesman Keynote speaker Ross Dawson discusses the future of work noted:
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Visual network map of MegaTrends to 2050
By Ross DawsonFuturist Richard Watson and I have collaborated for many years on client projects and visual frameworks, including Trend Blend 2007, over a decade ago sparking the trend for using subway maps to display trends and their intersections.
Richard is still at it, having recently created a massive visual exploration based on the London train network of MegaTrends out to 2050.
Click on the image to see the high resolution version – you need to spend time on this to discover the details.
Read more →
Our education systems must focus on developing underlying human capabilities, not just knowledge and skills
By Ross DawsonIt is absolutely clear that better, broader education will be essential in creating a positive future of work. However we still need to work out precisely what is the education that will be most relevant for tomorrow’s world. Read more →
How company directors can integrate innovation and governance to drive performance
By Ross DawsonLast week I ran a half-day program on Integrating an Innovation Mindset with Effective Governance for Bursa Malaysia (the Malaysian stock exchange) attended by 160 company directors.
Over the last years I have annually run two-day innovation programs for the Malaysian Director’s Academy (MINDA), designed to develop company directors’ capabilities and mindset to engage with and promote effective innovation in the organizations they lead. I was pleased to have the opportunity to take these ideas to a broader audience of senior company directors in this dynamic economy.
I would argue that it is not just a question of “balance”, but one of actively integrating innovation and governance, in that understanding that NOT innovating effectively – which requires actively moving into uncertainty – is often the greatest risk.
Read more →
Just launched: The Commonwealth Bank jobs and skills of the future report
By Ross DawsonAs such I was delighted to be commissioned by Commonwealth Bank to create a report in collaboration with their team: The Commonwealth Bank jobs and skills of the future report (12.4MB), to share useful insights for individuals, families and organisations what we can do today to shape a positive future of work for all Australians.
The report has been launched this morning and can be downloaded here (12.4MB).
Read more →
Record-Low Trust Levels Show Global Media Needs to Win Back Audience Confidence
By Nick RoffeyPublic confidence in news media has steadily declined in recent years. In fact, according to a poll conducted by communications marketing firm Edelman, it’s hit an all-time low in 17 countries.
The media is not the only institution dealing with trust issues. The Edelman firm has dubbed 2017 the year of “Trust in Crisis,” as faith in business, government, and NGOs has also plummeted.
Trust in media
Survey findings show that the media is distrusted in 82% of the 28 countries polled. The study, conducted in the last quarter of 2016, surveyed more than 33,000 respondents.
In most countries, trust levels decreased from the previous year, with particularly dramatic drops in the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, and Mexico. Trust levels in other countries also fell significantly, with decreases of 10% in Canada, Australia, Ireland, and Colombia.
The country that fared the worst was Turkey, where trust levels came in at a dismal 25%. Russia didn’t do much better, falling to 31%, but nor did the UK at 32%. For comparison, the US sat at 47%, unchanged from the previous year, while news outlets in China, India, and Indonesia maintained high levels of public confidence, despite an 8% drop for China.
Trust levels also varied by media source. People expressed more confidence in search engines and traditional media than in owned media or social media. In fact, 64% reported high trust levels in search engines. Since 2012, confidence in search engines has increased, while faith in both traditional media and social media has gradually declined.
The Edelman report identifies a more general fear that the system is failing as part of growing skepticism toward the media. Media echo chambers, which reinforce rather than challenge existing fears and opinions, exacerbate this distrust.
The paradox of social media
When we look at other polls, the picture becomes even more complex.
A lot has changed over the last decade, including the media landscape itself. One of the most obvious changes is how people access news. According to Pew Research Center, about nine out of ten Americans get some of their news online, most with mobile devices. This is a significant increase since 2007 when only two-thirds of respondents reported accessing online news.
As the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 shows, this is a global trend. The report highlights findings from a YouGov survey of more than 70,000 people across 36 countries. Results show that among 18- to 24-year-olds, 64% use online media as their main source of news. Older groups are less likely to do so, but numbers hover around the 50% mark for audiences between ages 25 and 44.
Another dramatic shakeup stems from the diversification of news sources. The Digital News Report also revealed that a third of those in 18 to 24 age bracket now rely on social media as their main news source, and 21% of those aged 25 to 34.
But although people are increasingly dependent on social media for news, they’re also extremely wary. The survey found that just one-quarter of respondents thought social media did a good job of separating fact from fiction. That’s even worse than trust rates in news media, polled at 40%.
This is what we might call the paradox of social media. It makes news pervasive and people depend on it more, but they also have low confidence in it. This is a curious fact. Shouldn’t traditional media look better in comparison and earn a higher trust level as a result? As the Digital News Report speculates, skepticism toward online sources may have spilled over into the public’s confidence in traditional media outlets.
If true, the news isn’t all bad. It means there’s hope for media outlets that promote a clear distinction between the jumble of real and fake news that appears on social media and traditional professional publications.
Political polarization
The Digital News Report also revealed a correlation between distrust and political polarization. Its findings differed from Edelman’s, showing South Korea rather than Turkey at the bottom of the confidence scale, with only 23% of respondents expressing trust in the media. The US also did worse, hitting only 38%, while Turkey received a marginally higher trust level at 40%.
But at the same time, over half of respondents in the US expressed trust in the sources they relied on for news. In other words, they had low confidence in the media in general, but relatively high trust in their preferred news sources.
This points to an interesting trend in the data. In countries with news outlets distributed across a broader, more extreme political spectrum, public confidence in the media is low. It’s higher in countries like Germany, where most news outlets huddle around the middle of the spectrum.
In polarized political climates, the media tends to become polarized as well, reinforcing the views of their main readership while pushing others to the margins. This can be exacerbated by media consolidation and worsened by the echo chamber of news on social media, which tends to show users news that confirms their existing opinions.
The only way to break this echo chamber is by including diverse political viewpoints and considering counterarguments in fair and accurate ways.
The good news
Is there hope that the relationship between the public and the media can be restored?
The good news is that there are bumps in the downward spiral of public confidence in news media. Although the general trend is negative, trust levels have sometimes shown marginal improvement year to year—indicating the situation can be turned around.
Without public trust, there is no news, just private opinions and political propaganda. In the babble of voices online, it’s difficult to walk the line between conforming to new trends and maintaining a distinct and professional identity. But now more than ever, in this extremely politically charged climate, it’s vital that media outlets improve how the public perceives them, and regain public confidence in the news.