Edelman has published a their annual “Edelman Trust Barometer” report (for a quick summary, see also the FIR coverage [near the end of the podcast]) — and this year, they have noted that — amid a loss of trust in many institutions — trust in media remains more or less intact. Yet in my opinion, the wide palette of the multifaceted media landscape requires a more nuanced analysis — lets take a look of one of the diagrams from the Edelman report:
Note that this diagram shows that, overall, the proportion of “Informed Public” that “Trust a Great Deal” at least one of these four kinds of media increased from 72% to 88% (a rise of over 22%). The only one of the four media types that had a significant above-average increase in this regard was the “Social Media” label. Also, note that “social media” still remains an unidentified / undefined term. Finally, it would be very interesting to know what other kinds of “media” people trust and/or distrust — for example: Mothers? Next-door-neighbors? Schoolteachers? College professors? Cashiers? Hairstylists? …?
Note that Ragan also reported wide variation across countries:
In the U.S., trust in all media sources rose, with major jumps in the perceived trustworthiness of television, radio, and newspapers as sources of information about a company (by 23, 13, and 11 points, respectively). In the U.K., those same sources increased (by 25, 17, and 17 points, respectively). By contrast, in France and Germany, trust in television news and newspapers fell by ten or more points.
China saw double-digit decreases in television as a trusted source, plunging from 74 to 43 percent. Newspapers in that country didn’t fare well either (down by 20 points to 34 percent). But trust in social media jumped: micro-blogging sites and social-networking sites went from virtual distrust at just one percent each to being greatly trusted by a quarter (25 percent) and 21 percent, respectively—a likely reflection of the rapid growth in social media usage within China. At the end of 2010, Weibo (the Twitter equivalent) had 60 million users. By the end of 2011, 310 million users were on Weibo, which broke major news stories, including the corruption of the Red Cross and a high-speed train crash.