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Essay
Public Attitudes
By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
What does the public think of the Web as a news source? Do
people use it for some things more than others? Are they growing
more trusting of the Web than they used to be? The answers,
in some cases, may surprise.
An examination of the latest data on public attitudes suggests
three themes:
- Trust in the Internet as an information source may be
dropping rather than rising, yet people make big distinctions
between different kinds of sites.
- Convenience, timeliness and the diversity of sources seem
to be the key to the Internet's appeal, rather than the
potential to delve deeply into subject matter.
- When it comes to homeland security and terrorism, older
media may have much more appeal.
Reliability and Accuracy
One might have thought that with time and familiarity, trust
in the accuracy of the Web would grow. Evidence suggests that
may not be the case.
According to research from the USC Annenberg School Center
for the Digital Future, the number of users who think most
of the information on the Internet is reliable and accurate
has been declining since 2001. In the summer of 2003, 49%
said they thought that most such information was reliable
and accurate, down from 51% in 2002 and 56% in 2001. The number
was 52% in 2000.
At the opposite end, the number of those who believe that
only half the information on the Internet is reliable and
accurate is rising, and in 2003 passed 40% for the first time
in the four years of the study.
Perceptions of Internet’s Reliability, Overall
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Survey qu.: ’’How much of the information
on the Internet do you think is reliable and accurate?’’
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Additional research in 2004 suggests that trust varies dramatically
depending on the site. According to the USC Annenberg School's
Center for the Digital Future, large majorities (74%) think
that most or all of the information on established news sites
and government Web sites is reliable and accurate. The number
drops to just 10% for pages posted by individuals.
Established sites used to be thought of as the online offshoots
of news outlets in other genres, such as The New York Times
and CNN. Now, though, Web-only search engines such as Google
and Yahoo! are used by 70% of online news users and considered
by many to be "established."
How Much of the Internet is Reliable and Accurate?
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User perception by type of website.
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As reported in the section on audience
established sites like CNN and Yahoo! are the ones people
regularly visit, while blogs are still not a central part
of the online news experience. Not surprisingly, then, users
rate the sites they visit regularly higher as well. The USC
Annenberg School reports 68% of Internet users saying most
(61%) or all (7%) of this information is reliable and accurate.
In 2002, though, more than eight in ten said most (69%) or
all (13%) was reliable.
It appears, then, that as people gain more familiarity with
the Web, they are becoming more educated and more selective
about online information. Brand quality transfers to the Web;
people sense that the Internet is more than one medium. And
the key to the popularity of the major sites may be that they
combine the reliability of the old media with the convenience
and control of the new.
On the other hand, the declining trust, even in sites people
use most, is worrisome. People may be sensing over time that
the nature of the Internet, the speed and culture of the medium,
may erode the reliability even of organizations they otherwise
trust.
The Appeal of the Internet
What attracts people to the Internet?
As we found a year earlier, variety of viewpoints and convenience
appear to be at the heart of what makes the Internet a useful
news source. A March 2004 survey conducted by Pew Research
found nearly half of respondents saying they used the Web
for 2004 election news "because you can get information
from a wider range of viewpoints on the Web"; 37% said
"getting information online is more convenient."
In 2003, online users displayed similar reasons for getting
news online about the war in Iraq. Then, two-thirds cited
the ability to get news from a variety of sources.
When it came to election news, Internet users seemed to have
followed through on this desire for a wide-range of sources.
A Pew Internet & American Life Project study in the middle
of the 2004 election season concluded that even when such
variables as political interest, age, and education are controlled,
"Internet users have greater overall exposure to political
arguments and they also hear more challenging positions."
If what users are looking for is a range of viewpoints, it
seems only logical that the search engine has found its place
as an extension of the overall online news experience. Search
engines like Yahoo! and Google and the widely anticipated
MSN Search from Microsoft, allow a user to find a seemingly
endless stream of voices on any given topic.
What does not at first seem to track with these findings
is users' predilection toward established sites. If they trust
sites like CNN and The New York Times more - and indeed, those
top sites command the vast majority of traffic - how do we
explain a mix of views as their top priority? One possibility
is that this gets at the distinction between what they like
about the Internet overall - the possibility for endless voices,
versus what they look for in specific sites themselves: reliability.
Or it may represent the perennial discrepancy between what
people say they want and what they actually do.
Do the reasons differ according to age? Perhaps. A qualitative
study released by the Online Publishers Association on the
media habits of the 18-to-34-year-old audience found that
convenience and accessibility are the two factors most determining
which medium this age group uses. According to the report,
people in that group "often have unpredictable schedules
and may only have small slivers of time available to use media.
As a result, the Internet, which is pervasive and accessible
on their own time, has become a dominant medium in the lives
of these consumers."
There was also evidence in 2004 that the Internet was encouraging
a certain kind of news consumption that some experts did not
anticipate.
When television emerged as the dominant news source in America
in the 1960s, social scientists began to identify something
that might be called accidental or incidental news consumption.
Because television forced viewers to watch the whole program
to see the news they were interested in - rather than being
able to pick and choose stories the way they did with newspapers
- people were becoming knowledgeable about things they didn't
know they were interested in. They were gaining accidental
knowledge.
The Internet, it was expected, would erode that, since it
allowed infinite levels of control by consumers over what
they were interested in.
Some of the news-consumption data developed in 2004 suggests
it hasn't been that simple. Indeed, data from the Pew Research
Center in May found an increase in the number of Internet
users who say they come across a news story when going online
for another purpose. Seventy-three percent of online users
told Pew they bumped into news after going online for an another
purpose, up from 65% in 2002 and 55% in 1999.
It may be that the ease of navigation encourages people to
wander more.
Terrorism and the Internet
With homeland security and the war on terrorism overriding
public concerns, how does the Internet fit in?
The Council for Excellence in Government conducted surveys
on this subject in February 2004.
The answers suggest that the things that make the Internet
so attractive for people generally matter less when it comes
to civil defense.
And when it comes to preparation, the Internet holds particular
appeal, especially for access to the government.
In a crisis, an emergency, the old and more establishment
media - perhaps with stronger connections to officialdom -
still hold stronger appeal. That might be surprising considering
the Web is often prized for its breaking news capacity.
The study found that three in ten people say they would go
to government Web sites (28%) or news Web sites (28%) if they
wanted to learn how to prepare for a terrorist attack, learn
about the latest threats, and receive guidance on security
precautions; a majority (73%) say they would use television.
Where People Turn to for Homeland Security News
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Percent saying first or second source.
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However, the Internet wanes in popularity when people are
asked where they would get information about a terrorist attack
on their own community.
Click
here to view footnotes for this section.
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