How Americans Navigated the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review
Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19.
Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19.
As election returns rolled in – albeit more slowly than in recent years – Americans were tuning in closely. They also, for the most part, gave their news sources positive marks for the coverage of the returns, though Republicans were less likely to do so than Democrats.
59% of Americans say made-up information that is intended to mislead causes a “great deal” of confusion about the 2020 presidential election.
Biden supporters are more likely than Trump supporters to be confident their news sources will make the right call in announcing a winner. And partisans remain worlds apart on how well the U.S. has controlled the coronavirus outbreak.
Entering the peak of the the 2020 election season, social media platforms are firmly entrenched as a venue for Americans to process campaign news and engage in various types of social activism. But not all Americans use these platforms in similar ways.
Republicans are about four times as likely as Democrats to say voter fraud has been a major issue with mail-in ballots.
A majority of voters said it is very or somewhat important to them to get messages from the presidential campaigns about important issues.
The gender gap in party identification remains the widest in a quarter century.
With Election Day six months away, 52% of Americans are paying fairly close or very close attention to news about the presidential candidates.
Americans turn to a wide range of media outlets for political and election news, but Fox News and CNN stand out as especially common sources.