COVID-19 pandemic information sources 2020| ��ƽ��

What sources do you actively use to keep informed about the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic? (as of May 31, 2020)

Characteristic	Germany	United Kingdom	United States
TV	73%	73%	63%
News websites	49%	53%	49%
Search engines (e.g. Google)	30%	23%	34%
Social media	23%	27%	29%
Friends and acquaintances	26%	20%	26%
Scientific / medical websites	23%	14%	23%
Newspapers and magazines (print)	32%	22%	21%
Radio shows	37%	20%	14%
Scientific / medical journals	11%	7%	14%
Apps	7%	9%	10%
Podcasts	9%	4%	9%
Online forums	12%	8%	9%
Blogs	5%	5%	6%
Other	2%	2%	3%
I do not keep actively informed about the virus	6%	5%	5%

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Release date

June 2020

More information

Region

Germany, United Kingdom, United States

Survey time period

May 25 to 31, 2020

Number of respondents

2,137 respondents

Age group

18 years and older

Method of interview

Online survey

Supplementary notes

Multiple answers were possible.

Citation formats

Respondents from Germany, United Kingdom and the United States primarily rely on TV to stay informed about COVID-19. A rather modest share of respondents from either one of these countries, however, depend on podcasts or blogs as information source regarding the pandemic.

Effect of coronavirus on global internet usage

All over the world, coronavirus has forced millions of people to stay at home. They are self-isolating to save themselves and their social environment from a further spread of the pandemic. Businesses and markets are closed, and people have more time to spend online. This might be one of the reasons why global internet traffic increased by 20 percent in April 2020 as compared to January and February of that year. Different industries experienced an increase in online traffic during this period: Supermarkets and retail tech for instance, were greatly in-demand among the online consumers.

Coronavirus and fake news

The internet is overflowing with news about coronavirus. People claim more information about the pandemic that has brought their lives to a standstill and they are certainly getting it via all kinds of media. But how much of the news is deemed reliable?
As of May 2020, respondents around the world are worried that a lot of fake news about COVID-19 is being spread. Some are finding it difficult to get reliable information about this topic, and almost half of respondents in the U.S. (aged 18 and older) which are democrats or republicans, encountered made-up news about this pandemic.