What Americans think it takes to be a good news consumer
One of the most common things Americans associate with being a good news consumer is a sense of skepticism or discernment.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Misinformation
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Americans Plan To Follow Election Returns Closely; Biden Supporters More Confident Their News Sources Will Make Right Call
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.
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64% of Americans say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in the U.S. today
Just one-in-ten Americans say social media sites have a mostly positive effect on the way things are going in the U.S. today.
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Many Americans Get News on YouTube, Where News Organizations and Independent Producers Thrive Side by Side
Videos from independent news producers are more likely to cover subjects negatively and discuss conspiracy theories.
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Political Divides, Conspiracy Theories and Divergent News Sources Heading Into 2020 Election
Republicans are about four times as likely as Democrats to say voter fraud has been a major issue with mail-in ballots.
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Few Americans are confident in tech companies to prevent misuse of their platforms in the 2020 election
73% of Americans express little or no confidence in tech companies to prevent the misuse of their platforms to influence the 2020 election.
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Americans Who Mainly Get Their News on Social Media Are Less Engaged, Less Knowledgeable
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.
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A look at the Americans who believe there is some truth to the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was planned
Most Americans (71%) have heard of a conspiracy theory that alleges that powerful people intentionally planned the coronavirus outbreak.
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Around three-in-ten Americans are very confident they could fact-check news about COVID-19
Americans’ confidence in checking COVID-19 information aligns closely with their confidence in checking the accuracy of news stories broadly.
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SXSW 2020 Online Session: Misinformation and the 2020 U.S. Election
Amy Mitchell (Pew Research Center), Philip Howard (University of Oxford), Jane Lytvynenko (Buzzfeed News) and Lori Robertson (Factcheck.org) discuss misinformation during the coronavirus outbreak, and ahead of the 2020 presidential election, as part of SXSW 2020’s virtual sessions.
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About Seven-in-Ten U.S. Adults Say They Need to Take Breaks From COVID-19 News
61% give equal attention to national and local coronavirus news.
