Over 60% of People Believe Compatriots Trust Politicians Less Than 30 Years Ago - Study
Sixty-four percent of people in 27 countries said their fellow citizens believed politicians were less trustworthy than they were 30 years ago, a large-scale study about political mood around the world showed on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) Sixty-four percent of people in 27 countries said their fellow citizens believed politicians were less trustworthy than they were 30 years ago, a large-scale study about political mood around the world showed on Thursday.
"It's no surprise that 64% think people in their country trust politicians to tell the truth less than they did 30 years ago. This includes a majority in every country in the study and reaches highs of 80% in Sweden and 77% in South Africa," the summary of the study, conducted by the Ipsos MORI market research agency, read.
The agency noted that 57 percent of respondents thought politicians and media spread more disinformation than they did three decades ago. However, 11 percent believed there were currently less lying in politics and media.
Today, 39 percent of people think that an average person knows more about politics compared with 30 years ago, according to the survey.
Fifty-two percent of respondents blamed people's misconceptions about key realities on politicians, while 49 percent blamed the media and 41 percent suggested that social media were responsible. However, 43 percent of respondents said that the misunderstanding of key realities should be blamed on a person's tendency to focus on negative information.
Sixty percent of those surveyed said they had seen stories where a news outlet had deliberately spread disinformation. Moreover, 48 percent said they had believed a news story in the past that was later found to be fake.
The agency noted that the term "fake news" was used in several different ways.
"The most common understanding is 'stories where the facts are wrong,' which 56% pick out as their understanding of the term. But 44% also see fake news as stories where news outlets or politicians only pick facts that support their side of the argument ... And 36% now see fake news as a term politicians and the media use to discredit news they don't agree with," the summary of the study read.
Sixty-five percent of the respondents said their average compatriot lived "in a bubble on the internet," communicating only with people who shared his or her point of view and seeking opinions he or she already endorsed.
Sixty-three percent of people expressed confidence that they were able to identify fake news.
Notably, 60 percent of those surveyed said an average person in their country did not care about facts and believed what he or she wanted.
The survey was conducted between June 22 and July 6 among 19,243 adults in 27 countries.