So problematic and so tied to the media: analyzing the misinformation concern in six European countries
Abstract
Purpose
This paper addresses the social issue of misinformation in six European countries by investigating how intangible factors associated with the collective evaluation of political-institutional behaviors and judgments regarding media practices and uses of online communication channels are related to citizens’ concerns about misinformation.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a quantitative approach (data analysis), the study relies on data from the Eurobarometer 98.2 (2023), the official public opinion survey of European institutions. The analysis encompasses six European countries representing the pluralist-polarized (Spain, Italy and Greece) and democratic-corporatist models (Germany, Denmark and Sweden). With a multiple linear regression model, the research explores how independent variables help explain citizens' concerns regarding misinformation in each country.
Findings
The paper emphasizes three main findings: (1) for citizens in five out of six countries, the main factor associated with an increased misinformation concern is the distrust of political information on social network sites. (2) for citizens, how they evaluate the performance of traditional media relates to misinformation concerns and (3) this holds for countries categorized in pluralist-polarized and democratic-corporatist media system models.
Practical implications
Media managers and policymakers can leverage the insights from this research to address the social concern of misinformation.
Originality/value
This article adds value to existing misinformation studies by underscoring the significance of understanding how citizens’ assessments of political-institutional behaviors, journalism practices and the political use of online communication channels interconnect with the misinformation concern in both pluralist-polarized and democratic-corporatist models.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Funding: This research was supported by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), belonging to the European Commission, Jean Monnet (Erasmus+) “Future of Europe Communication in times of Pandemic Disinformation” (FUTEUDISPAN) (No: 101083334-JMO-2022-CHAIR). Nevertheless, the authors bear sole responsibility for the content of this article, and the EACEA assumes no liability for the utilization of the disclosed information. This research was also funded by Universidad de La Sabana (No: COMCORP-3-2023), associated with the research group CICCO Centro de Investigaciones de la Comunicación Corporativa Organizacional.
Citation
Rodríguez-Pérez, C., Murcia Verdú, F.J. and Ufarte Ruiz, M.J. (2024), "So problematic and so tied to the media: analyzing the misinformation concern in six European countries", Online Information Review, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-02-2024-0094
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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