Trust in news is also falling, says study
Portuguese citizens are more concerned about disinformation on the Internet than the global average from countries analysed in the Reuters Digital News Report 2024, released today, and are saturated with the news, especially women.
Reuters Digital News Report 2024 (Reuters DNR 2024) is the 13th annual report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) and the 10th to include information on Portugal.
In 2024, 47 news markets took part, including Portugal.
As a strategic partner, OberCom – Observatório da Comunicação – collaborated with RISJ in designing the questionnaire for Portugal, as well as analysing and interpreting the final data.
“The Portuguese are more concerned about what is real or fake on the Internet (72%) than the global average of the countries analysed (59%), although the trend of this indicator is growing in both cases,” the study states, adding that “along with this concern, the number of respondents who claim to have encountered false or inaccurate information content on any of the topics they were confronted with has also increased at national and global level.”
In global terms, concern about what is real and what is fake online has increased by three percentage points this year compared to 2023.
In Portugal, “this concern increases with age, education, income and is also higher among those with a declared political orientation,” the study adds.
The percentage of respondents saying they trust the news in general fell by around two percentage points this year (from 58% to 56%), but “remains the same among those who say they trust the news they consume (58%)”.
Between 2015 and 2024 “there was a drop of 10 percentage points in trust in news in general and 13 percentage points in news consumed,” the study says.
“Media transparency is considered by 78% of Portuguese to be ‘Very’ or ‘Somewhat’ important in defining their trust in news (79%), followed by the representation of people as themselves in a fair way (75%), while 74 per cent attribute trust in news to the fact that the news media have high journalistic standards.”
Women are the most saturated with news
Saturation with news increased this year by nine percentage points compared to 2023, with more than half of Portuguese (51%) agreeing or fully agreeing “that they are saturated with the amount of news nowadays”.
These figures are in line with “the active avoidance of news, the frequency of which has increased in Portugal,” says the study.
“Women are the most saturated (58% agree/strongly agree with the statement compared to only 43% of men),” the study points out.
This data is in line with “the phenomenon of active news avoidance, the size of which has increased in Portugal (from 35% in 2023 to 37% in 2024)”, as is the case in almost all central and southern European countries – particularly the United Kingdom (46%), Ireland (44%) and France (39%).
“Here too, it is women, along with the less educated and those with lower incomes, who avoid news the most,” reads the document.
In Portugal, interest in news “has remained relatively stable over the last three years, with 51% of respondents emphasising their interest in news, 10% saying they have no interest and 36% declaring a neutral interest”, and those most interested in news “are older people and those who say they have some political orientation”.
According to the study, “news about politics, local issues and mental health/wellness are the most interesting, while news topics that generate the least interest are entertainment and celebrities, lifestyle, culture and humour”.
Most disinformation detected by the Portuguese is about politics, the study adds.
“In Portugal, the topic on which respondents say they have encountered the most disinformation is politics (28%), as is also the case globally, and it should be noted that, despite the greater concern about disinformation, the Portuguese say to a lesser extent than the rest of the respondents that they have encountered disinformation on any of the topics explored.”
Television continues to be more prevalent among older people; the Internet among younger people in Portugal.
According to Reuters’ data, television continues to be the medium for accessing news for 67% of Portuguese and 53% (up two percentage points on 2023) say they use it as their main source of news.
“However, age is a determining factor here, because while only 31% of young people aged between 18 and 24 make television their main source of news compared to 68% of Portuguese aged 65 and over, if we talk about the Internet the result is reversed and we have 58% of young people aged between 18 and 24 saying they have the Internet as their main source of information, while only 21% of respondents aged over 65 say so,” according to the report.
The survey was carried out in 47 markets: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
The fieldwork was carried out at the end of January/beginning of February.
Source: LUSA
