Print is most trusted medium for COVID-19 information, reveals Mass Comm survey
| Date :05-Apr-2020 |
Staff Reporter :
Survey by Mass Comm Deptt shows Govt communication effective in corona pandemic
A majority chose newspapers above other news media as the most credible, useful and responsible medium in giving news and information about the current COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent survey, a majority of citizens from different age groups and backgrounds dismissed 50 to 80 per cent of what they saw on Social Media as “Fake News.” The study, conducted by 64 students of the Department of Mass Communication, RTM Nagpur University, used the snowball sampling technique for the online survey in which 1,205 people responded.
The respondents included students, private and Government employees, business people, professionals and home makers. Of the total, 65.6% were male, 34% female and 0.4% preferred not to state their gender. The Head of the Department, Dr Moiz Mannan Haque, who conceived and led the study, informed that a 15-point online form was deployed for the survey which ran from March 28 to April 4. “At a time when a large number of people are consuming mass media content, it becomes important to understand the users’ perceptions.
If the common people do not attach credibility and veracity to a particular source, it becomes difficult to mobilise them for safety and precaution,” he said. The study sought to analyse the consumption as well as perception patterns among people with specific regard to television (news channels), newspapers, radio, Social Media and digital news media. More than a third of the respondents said that in normal times (before the pandemic), their primary source of news and information was television, followed way behind by digital news media, social media and newspapers, in that order.
In the past month (during the pandemic and lock down) the TV viewership as the main source went up by a little over eight per cent. In this period, the number of people who indicated newspaper as the first choice decreased by more than 11 per cent. The use of digital news media went up by 5.8% while primacy to social media went down by a marginal 0.4%. “One must realise here that, for a period of time, hard copies of newspapers were not available to consumers. Many of them were either reading e-papers or web news portals,” explained Dr Haque. When asked in the survey as to what they did in the absence of hard copies of newspapers, 36.1% respondents said they watched television instead; 22.8% said they accessed the e-papers on their own; while 27% said they received e-paper links from friends, relatives or newspaper employees known to them.
It may be noted that all major newspapers were still being published in electronic form and journalists and other newspaper employees took it upon themselves to make the links viral. During this period, 10.4% said that in the absence of newspapers they relied on social media posts for information. This figure did not include the 3.7% who said they received stand-alone clippings of COVID-related news items through the social media networks and messaging applications. As for the sheer volume of COVID-related content, a majority of the respondents rated television the highest and radio the lowest.
Bulk-wise, people rated digital news media as second, followed by social media and newspapers in that order. “Here again, one must consider the research anomaly that some respondents who have ticked for newspapers and others for digital news media might actually both have been reading newspapers in two different forms,” Dr Haque elaborated. The print media has scored high with respect to perceptions regarding Credibility, Usefulness and Responsibility showed in the COVID-19 coverage. What stood out is that on all three parameters for all five media, the majority has ticked ‘3’ on a 5-point scale, except for the credibility parameter for social media (the lowest) and usefulness for newspapers (the highest). “This is an indication that consumers are neither observant nor sensitive to the content dished out to them. They’re just not discerning enough, and so, most appeared non-committal when answering this question,” Dr Haque pointed out.
The question pertaining to Fake News (false and misleading information) saw 39.1% respondents saying 50 to 80% of information on social media was false. A good 10.8% felt more than 80% was ‘fake news’. Only 3.3% thought such content was between zero and 10%. It becomes clear, thus, that people are aware of the presence of fake news but a disproportionately large number still said they get their information from social media. An important fact came to light through a question as to how they discovered that a particular news item or post was false. The majority in the survey (36.5%) said they knew this after they saw an official clarification or correction by a government source. “This proves that the proactive communication by health, police, local administration and other government sources does have a positive effect,” felt Dr Haque. The growing awareness amongst citizens was also felt when 51.5% said they took it upon themselves to verify suspicious posts either using a fact-checking site or app, or by checking in the mainstream media.
“The proactive approach of a section of alert and responsible citizens is also beginning to have some effect,” elaborated Dr Haque. In the survey, a good 12% said they realized something was ‘fake’ after a friend, contact or group member put up a counter post. To a question as to whether the media was “overplaying” the pandemic at the cost of other important news, 34.9% chose to remain neutral. The option of “strongly agree” and “agree” to this statement was taken by 32.7% and for the other way round it was 32.3%. So, opinions are quite equally divided on this count.