In the current media landscape, it is becoming increasingly difficult for citizens to rely on trustworthy information, not least because reliable facts are mixed with dubious claims, unsubstantiated opinions, or outright lies. The ability to distinguish factual from other types of mediated information is becoming increasingly crucial, but we know little about how well-equipped citizens are to make these distinctions. In an original survey study conducted in ten European countries, we asked respondents whether they considered six different statements relating to the European Union to be factual or opinion statements. Our results show that citizens have considerable difficulties in correctly identifying both factual information and opinions. Next to pre-existing judgements, we identify media-related, political, and sociodemographic factors that influence categorisation accuracy. We discuss our findings in relation to citizens’ perceptions of journalistic credibility and their information literacy as well as ongoing debates about the effectiveness of fact-checkers on social media.

中文翻译：

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“这就像你的观点”——欧洲公民区分事实信息和观点的能力

在当前的媒体环境中，公民越来越难以依赖可信的信息，尤其是因为可靠的事实与可疑的主张、未经证实的观点或彻头彻尾的谎言混合在一起。区分事实与其他类型的媒介信息的能力变得越来越重要，但我们对公民是否有能力做出这些区分知之甚少。在一项在十个欧洲国家进行的原始调查研究中，我们询问受访者是否认为与欧盟有关的六种不同陈述是事实陈述还是观点陈述。我们的结果表明，公民在正确识别事实信息和观点方面存在相当大的困难。除了预先存在的判断之外，我们还确定了影响分类准确性的媒体相关、政治和社会人口因素。我们讨论了有关公民对新闻可信度及其信息素养的看法以及有关社交媒体事实核查员有效性的持续争论的调查结果。