BY Amy Mitchell, Katie Simmons, Katerina Eva Matsa, Laura Silver, Elisa Shearer, Courtney

119 Pages·2017·2.53 MB·English

by  Shannon Greenwood

FOR RELEASE MAY 14, 2018
BY Amy Mitchell, Katie Simmons, Katerina Eva Matsa, Laura Silver, Elisa Shearer, Courtney
Johnson, Mason Walker and Kyle Taylor

FOR MEDIA OR OTHER INQUIRIES:

Amy Mitchell, Director, Journalism Research
Katie Simmons, Associate Director, Research

Rachel Weisel, Communications Manager
202.419.4372
www.pewresearch.org

RECOMMENDED CITATION
Pew Research Center, May, 2018, “In Western Europe,
Public Attitudes Toward News Media More Divided by
Populist Views Than Left-Right Ideology”
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About Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes
and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts
public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social
science research. It studies U.S. politics and policy; journalism and media; internet, science and
technology; religion and public life; Hispanic trends; global attitudes and trends; and U.S. social
and demographic trends. All of the Center’s reports are available at www.pewresearch.org. Pew
Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder.
© Pew Research Center 2018
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Table of Contents
About Pew Research Center 1
Overview 4
Publics in Western Europe view news outlets as more partisan than what is reflected in their
audiences 10
Many Western Europeans get news through social media, with Facebook being used most often 12
Country-specific dynamics of the news media in the UK 14
1. Populist views, more than left-right identity, play a role in opinions of the news media in Western
Europe 15
Broad majorities say the news media are important to society, but the level of importance varies by
country and populist leanings 16
Trust in news media differs by region and populist leanings 18
News media receive low ratings for political neutrality and immigration coverage, with large divides
among those with populist views 20
2. Southern European countries more fragmented in news sources, but for nearly all countries, top
main source is public, not private 24
People from southern European countries more fragmented in their main news source; for nearly all
countries, public news organizations sit at the top 25
Spanish and Italian adults display ideological divides in main news source; other countries more
unified 27
Across range of nationally oriented news outlets, audiences in Western Europe tend to concentrate
around ideological center 29
3. News outlets are less politically polarized than Western Europeans perceive 32
People tend to think the news outlets they use reflect their own ideological position 33
4. Most Western Europeans trust public broadcasters, but those who hold populist views are less
so 36
Public broadcasters generally more trusted than other outlets 37
Populist views relate to trust in media in all countries; left-right political ideology matters more in the
south than the north Error! Bookmark not defined.
5. Many Western Europeans get news via social media, but in some countries, substantial
minorities do not pay attention to the source 42
Across countries, social media is used to get news, with Facebook cited as the most widely used site
for news 43
Younger adults are more likely to get news on social media 45
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In some countries, as many as a third say they don’t pay attention to sources of news they get from
social media 46
People encounter news on social media that reflects a political view different from their own more
often than in personal discussions 48
Use of social media for news does not tie closely to levels of trust in the news media 51
In some countries, those with populist views are more likely to get news from social media 52
Acknowledgments 53
Methodology 55
Appendix A: How news outlets were selected in each country 56
Appendix B: About the focus groups 60
Appendix C: How this study measures populism 62
Appendix D: Detailed tables 65
Appendix E: References 71
Appendix F: Topline questionnaire 72
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In Western Europe, Public
Trust in news media in Western Europe
Attitudes Toward News
varies widely between those with and
Media More Divided by
without populist views
Populist Views Than Left-
% of adults in each country who hold ___ views and
trust the news media at least somewhat
Right Ideology

Populist Non-populist DIFF
Germany 47% 78% +31
Spain 26 51 +25
Sweden 49 74 +25
Denmark 34 56 +22
France 26 47 +21
UK 26 43 +17
CORRECTION: This report was updated on
May 22, 2018 due to the possibility that the Netherlands 62 72 +10
language used to identify the German news
Italy 26 34 +8
outlet Die Tageszeitung may have confused
Smaller, if any, divides between those
respondents. References to that outlet have
on the political left and right
been removed throughout. There were no
% of adults in each country in each ideological group
substantive changes to the report’s
who trust the news media at least somewhat
conclusions.

Left Right DIFF
In Western Europe, public views of the news Spain 24% 34% +10
media are divided by populist leanings – more UK 31 34 +3
than left-right political positions – according
Italy 29 32 +3
to a new Pew Research Center public opinion
survey conducted in Denmark, France, Netherlands 67 67 0
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark 45 48 - 3
Sweden and the United Kingdom.
France 33 36 - 3
Germany 56 67 -11
Across all eight countries, those who hold
populist views value and trust the news media Sweden 61 72 -11
less, and they also give the media lower marks
Note: Statistically significant differences are in bold. Respondents
for coverage of major issues, such as
are classified as holding populist views if they answered: “Most
immigration, the economy and crime.1 elected officials don’t care what people like me think” and “Ordinary
people would do a better job solving the country’s problems than
elected officials.” See Appendix C for details on classification.
Source: Survey of eight Western European countries conducted Oct.
Trust in the news media dips lowest in Spain,
30-Dec. 20, 2017.
France, the UK and Italy, with roughly a “In Western Europe, Public Attitudes Toward News Media More
Divided by Populist Views Than Left-Right Ideology”
quarter of people with populist views in each
PEW RESEARCH CENTER
country expressing confidence in the news

1 Respondents are classified as holding populist views if they answered: “Most elected officials don’t care what people like me think” and
“Ordinary people would do a better job solving the country’s problems than elected officials.” See Appendix C for details on classification.
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media. By contrast, those without populist leanings are 8 to 31 percentage points more likely to at
least somewhat trust the news media across the countries surveyed.
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In Spain, Germany and
Sweden, public trust in the Measuring populist views
media also divides along the
To evaluate the impact of populist views on attitudes about the
left-right ideological
news media in eight Western European countries, the survey
spectrum, but the magnitude
focused on measuring core components of populism: that
of difference pales in
government should reflect the will of “the people” and that “the
comparison to the divides
people” and “elites” are opposing, antagonistic groups. The
between those with and
without populist leanings. measure is based on combining respondents’ answers to two
questions: 1) ordinary people would do a better job/do no better
When it comes to how the solving the country’s problems than elected officials and 2) most
news media perform on key elected officials care/don’t care what people like me think.
functions, broad majorities of
the publics rate the news In examining differences based on these views, the report refers
media highly for generally to people who hold “populist,” “non-populist” and “mixed”
covering the most important
views. Those who answered that elected officials don’t care about
issues of the day. This
people like them and who say ordinary people would do a better
includes majorities of both
job solving the country’s problems than elected officials are
those who do and do not hold
considered to hold populist views. People who say the reverse
populist views, though there
– that elected officials care and that ordinary people would do no
are still significant differences
better – are considered to not hold populist views. Everyone
in the magnitude of those
else, including people who refuse to answer one or both
ratings. More substantial
questions, is considered to hold mixed views.
divides between those two
groups occur around how the
The reason for focusing on these core components of populism is
news media do in covering
that they cut across populist movements on the left and the right
three specific issues asked
about here: the economy, of the ideological spectrum. By having a measure that is not
immigration and crime. (See constrained by left-right ideology, the survey provides a
detailed tables for more consistent, cross-national measure of some fundamental tenets
information.) of populism. This measure of populist views is correlated with
higher levels of support for both right- and left-wing populist
parties.
For more information on this measure, see Appendix C.
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People who embrace populist
Wide gap between Western Europeans with populist
views express much less views and those without in how well the news media
satisfaction with news cover the economy
coverage of these issues. In
% of adults in each country who hold ___ and say the news media do a
Spain, for example, those very/somewhat good job covering the economy
with populist leanings are 33
Populist Mixed Non-populist NON-POPULIST-
percentage points less likely
views views views POPULIST DIFF
than those without such Spain +33
0 100
leanings to rate the news 52% 85%
France +26
media’s coverage of the
58 84
economy as good. And in Germany +23
Germany, people with 65 88
Italy +18
populist views are 29 to 31
50 68
percentage points less likely Sweden +17
73 90
to applaud the news media’s
Netherlands +14
coverage of immigration and
76 90
crime than people who do Denmark +12
72 84
not hold populist views.
UK +12
59 71
Note: Statistically significant differences are in bold. Respondents are classified as holding
populist views if they answered: “Most elected officials don’t care what people like me think”
and “Ordinary people would do a better job solving the country’s problems than elected
officials.” See Appendix C for details on classification.
Source: Survey of eight Western European countries conducted Oct. 30-Dec. 20, 2017.
“In Western Europe, Public Attitudes Toward News Media More Divided by Populist Views
Than Left-Right Ideology”
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In addition to within country
Southern European countries express low trust in the
differences, public attitudes
news media

toward the news media also
% who say the news media are … % who trust the news media
diverge along regional lines.

This is most evident when it
Very Total Trust Total
comes to trust in the media, important important a lot trust
with public confidence Sweden 61% 95% Netherlands 18% 67%
considerably higher in the Germany 61 90 Germany 20 64
northern European countries
Spain 59 88 Sweden 12 64
polled, as opposed to the
southern countries.2 The UK Netherlands 43 88 Denmark 10 47
is somewhat anomalous, Denmark 42 85 France 4 35
resembling southern, more
UK 43 81 UK 5 32
than northern, Europe in its
low level of public trust in the France 28 76 Spain 5 31
media (32%). Italy 34 75 Italy 3 29
And while majorities in all Note: Southern European countries are in italics. Total important is the sum of “very” and
“somewhat” important. Total trust is the sum of “a lot” and “somewhat” trust.
eight countries say the news
Source: Survey of eight Western European countries conducted Oct. 30-Dec. 20, 2017.
media are at least somewhat “In Western Europe, Public Attitudes Toward News Media More Divided by Populist Views
Than Left-Right Ideology”
important to the functioning
PEW RESEARCH CENTER
of society, there are large
differences among the
countries in the portions who say that their role is very important.
In a question asked in a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults about trust in information from
national news organizations, Americans display similar levels of trust as those in the Netherlands
and Germany. About seven-in-ten Americans (72%) say they trust the information they get from
national news media at least somewhat, with 20% saying they trust it lot.

2 For this study, southern Europe refers to France, Italy and Spain. These three countries have somewhat similar news media environments,
relationships between the press and the government, and political histories (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Bruggemann et al., 2014).
www.pewresearch.org
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Southern Europeans less
Despite the fact that people with populist views are much likely to share the same
main source for news
less satisfied and trusting of the news media, they often rely
on the same primary source for news as those without % of adults in each country who name
each outlet as their main news source
populist views. This is the case in five of the eight countries
surveyed: Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and the UK
UK. In four of these five countries, a single news provider BBC 48%
ITV 6%
dominates as the main source for news.
Sky 6%
Sweden
In southern Europe, the media landscape is more SVT/Radio 39
fragmented, with no single news provider named as the Aftonbladet 17
TV4 10
main news source by more than 21% of adults. It is also the
Netherlands
case that in this part of Europe, left-right political identity is
NPO 37
more aligned with people’s choice of main news source than NU.nl 17
their populist leanings. RTL 10
Germany
ARD 32
In Italy, for example, 27% of those on the left turn to
ZDF 7
national broadcaster Rai News as their main source for Der Spiegel 6
news, compared with just 14% of those on the right. Italians Denmark
TV 2 News 31
on the right (30%) are more likely to turn to private
DR News 28
broadcaster Mediaset News than left-aligned adults (6%).
Ekstra Bladet 6
While there are some differences by populist views in Italy,
the divide tends to be smaller when compared with those Italy
Rai News 21
along the left-right political spectrum.
Mediaset News 18
Google 10
Here again the UK stands apart. Even as the BBC dominates France
TF1 16
as the top main news source for British adults –by both
BFM 15
populists and non-populists – there is still a large difference
France TV 15
between the portions of these two groups who name it as
Spain
their primary source. Just 42% of those with populist views RTVE 13
Antena 3 9
name the BBC as their main news source, compared with
laSexta 7
six-in-ten among those who do not hold populist views. Left-
right ideological differences do not emerge: roughly half on Note: Respondents in each country were asked
to name the outlet they turn to the most for
both the left (48%) and the right (51%) name the BBC as
news, and the top three outlets are shown.
their main news source. These outlets listed here may differ from the
specific news outlets asked about separately in
this survey. Major brands were grouped into
their larger news organization. For example, in
These are some of the key findings of a major Pew Research
France, France 2 is part of France Télévisions
Center survey of 16,114 adults about news media usage and (France TV).
Source: Survey of eight Western European
attitudes across eight Western European countries –
countries conducted Oct. 30-Dec. 20, 2017.
Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, “In Western Europe, Public Attitudes Toward
News Media More Divided by Populist Views
Sweden and the United Kingdom – conducted from Oct. 30 Than Left-Right Ideology”
to Dec. 20, 2017. Together, these eight European Union PEW RESEARCH CENTER
member states3 account for roughly 69% of the EU
population and 75% of the EU economy.

3 In June 2016, citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. At the time of this survey, the UK had formally notified the
bloc of its intentions to withdraw from the union but was still an EU member state.
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