ABSTRACT

In the age of misinformation, trust and trustworthiness – core values of journalism – have become more important as news companies reeling from the pandemic seek emergency funding for their operations from the public and funders look for trusted brands to support. Earlier studies indicated people are more willing to pay for trusted news brands, and recently, the public funding of news has been directed to institutions that are regarded as trustworthy news outlets, and provide information that is in the public interest. While the concept of trust is complicated and measuring it is challenging, trust has rapidly become a key inquiry in academia. However, New Zealand lacks in this research, and this study aims to start to fill that gap. The paper is based on our survey of 1204 New Zealanders, and comparable data from 38 countries surveyed in the Reuters Digital News Report 2019. The paper finds that trust in news in New Zealand is high when compared internationally, but a large proportion (47%) of citizens don’t trust the news. It also finds New Zealanders are more concerned about misinformation and disinformation than respondents in other Western societies.

摘要

在错误信息的时代，信任和可信度——新闻业的核心价值——变得越来越重要，因为受到大流行影响的新闻公司寻求公众为其运营提供紧急资金，而资助者则在寻找值得信赖的品牌来支持。较早的研究表明，人们更愿意为值得信赖的新闻品牌付费，而最近，新闻的公共资金已转向被视为值得信赖的新闻媒体的机构，并提供符合公众利益的信息。虽然信任的概念很复杂并且衡量它具有挑战性，但信任已迅速成为学术界的一个关键问题。然而，新西兰缺乏这项研究，而这项研究旨在开始填补这一空白。本文基于我们对 1204 名新西兰人的调查，以及来自 38 个国家的可比数据路透社 2019年数字新闻报道。该报发现，与国际相比，新西兰对新闻的信任度较高，但很大比例 (47%) 的公民不信任新闻。它还发现新西兰人比其他西方社会的受访者更关心错误信息和虚假信息。