Digital News Report, 2021
GS PAPER II: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
Context: The Reuters Institute Digital News Report, 2021 realeased.
India’s performance:
- India ranked 31 out of 46 countries on level of trust in news.
- Only 38% of the respondents from India said they trust news overall.
- This is the first time India features in the main report.
- The survey shows India is one of the strongest mobile-focused markets, with 73% of the respondents using smartphones to access news.
- 82% of the respondents in India said they source news online, including on social media, with WhatsApp and YouTube being the top go-to platforms.
- Concerns of rampant misinformation on these platforms were also high.
- The Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) in Chennai collaborated with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) at the University of Oxford on the report.
- The ACJ provided support in identifying news brands and other specific details relevant for the Indian market in the survey questionnaire, verifying Hindi translation of the questionnaire, and contextualising the main findings for India in its country profile.
Key highlights:
- Finland had the highest levels of overall trust in news (65%) while the U.S. had the lowest levels of trust (29%).
- Print media and government broadcasters score high on trust levels in the survey.
- However, print media suffered heavily from the economic slowdown due to the pandemic with decrease in advertisement revenues and circulation, resulting in job losses and salary cuts.
- This year’s report focuses on “trust in news, the pandemic induced economic pressure on news publishers, misinformation and COVID-19 and other aspects of digital news consumption among the public.
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