Many experts say lack of trust won't hinder increased public reliance on the internet. Some expect trust to grow as tech and regulatory changes arise; others think it will worsen or maybe change entirely.
Pew Research Center has examined how people think about democracy, trust in institutions, and the role of information in society for more than a decade. In light of current debates about the state of the democratic process and the importance of truth, the Center has further deepened its focus on public attitudes about the role of trust and facts in democracy. This page is a curation of the most relevant content on those topics.
Republicans and Democrats offer starkly different assessments of the impact of several of the nation’s leading institutions – including the news media, colleges and universities and churches and religious organizations
Roughly nine-in-ten Democrats say news media criticism keeps leaders in line (sometimes called the news media’s “watchdog role”), while only about four-in-ten Republicans say the same.
Changes in the dynamics of power in Washington have registered with members of both political parties.
Many experts fear uncivil and manipulative behaviors on the internet will persist – and may get worse.
Large majorities of the public, Republicans and Democrats alike, say open and fair elections and a system of governmental checks and balances are essential to maintaining a strong democracy in the United States.
A new Pew Research Center analysis of more than 200,000 press releases and Facebook posts from the official accounts of members of the 114th Congress uses methods from the emerging field of computational social science to quantify how often legislators themselves “go negative” in their outreach to the public.
Trump voters named one source more than any other as their main source of election news, whereas Clinton voters were spread across an array of sources.
About two-in-three U.S. adults say fake news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current issues. And nearly a quarter say they have ever shared completely made-up news.
A majority of U.S. adults (59%) reject the idea of adding interpretation, saying that the news media should present the facts alone
