Australia: confidence in social media news 2021| ��ƽ��

Trust in social media news in Australia as of February 2021

Characteristic	Share of respondents
-	-
-	-
-	-

Download

Source

Show detailed source information?

Already a member?

Sources

Release date

June 2021

More information

Region

Australia

Survey time period

January to February 2021

Number of respondents

2,034 respondents

Age group

18 years and older

Method of interview

Online survey

Supplementary notes

The survey question was phrased as follows " It is now possible to get online news in many different ways, including from search engines and social media sites. With this in mind, please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements. - I think I can trust news on social media most of the time."

Citation formats

A survey on digital news consumption in Australia conducted in February 2021 revealed that around **% of Australian consumers did not trust news from social media. However, there was a slight decrease in the level of mistrust toward social media news compared to the previous year.

Social media as a source of information

Social media as a source of information has become more popular in recent years. According to a 2022 survey, ** percent of respondents from Australia stated that they used social media as a source of news. Along with the benefits, social media has its drawbacks. The spread of misinformation and fake news is a significant problem, particularly during times of crisis or uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where false information spread rapidly on social media, causing confusion and harm.

 News sources in Australia

Overall, Australia's news media follows global trends; for example, paid consumption is typically relatively low, more people are turning to social media as their main news source, and traditional media like newspapers are experiencing a noticeable decrease. When it comes to getting news, Australians still use both offline and online media resources. In 2022, around ** percent of Australians accessed news via television in an average week, and just over a quarter caught up on news via social media and/or blogs. By comparison, just *** percent used print-based media to access news.