Infodemic and Fake News Turning Shift for Media: Distrust among University Students

Abstract

In many parts of the world, long before social media, trust in media and journalism was fragile and shaky. Today, however, with an unprecedented information abundance, the situation has worsened because, in the high-speed information free-for-all of social media platforms and the internet, anyone can consume and produce. As a result, citizens find it difficult to discern what is real and what is fake. In this context, the aim of the study is to explore how information and fake news consumption affects the perception of media in terms of trust. The methodology applied for this purpose was a mixed method using both quantitative and qualitative data in order to provide not only descriptive data but more thorough results. For the quantitative analysis, a sample of 849 university students participated: from these, a smaller sample of 100 participated in the qualitative phase. Conclusions indicate that the distribution of fake news is worryingly associated with the media and, consequently, a concerning distrust of media is shown among participants who express feeling insecure, vulnerable, confused, and distrusting of media.