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.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19.
Partisans differ on whether social media companies’ decisions had a major impact on the election.
U.S. adults in this group are less likely to get the facts right about COVID-19 and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.
About two-thirds of Republicans say the U.S. has controlled the outbreak as much as it could have; 88% of Democrats disagree.
After three months of news and information, 64% of U.S. adults say the CDC mostly gets the facts about the outbreak right; 30% say the same about President Trump and his administration.
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.
People in this group are most likely to say the outbreak has been made too big of a deal and journalists have been exaggerating the risks.
About half say they have seen at least some made-up news about the virus; 29% think it was created in a lab.
61% give equal attention to national and local coronavirus news.
Among black Americans, 72% say coverage has been good or excellent and 85% say Trump’s message has been completely or mostly wrong.
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