LACK OF TRUST IN MODERN MEDIA

Ященко А.А.
Российский Университет Дружбы Народов, студентка
The problem of trust in the media, as well as in society, in
individuals, today is more than relevant and in demand, because
the picture of the world is formed in people due to information
from the media sphere. Broad distrust of journalism is also
important because it signals about the institutional weakness of
the press, particularly at a time when journalism’s normative
functions for society are needed amid a global uptick in
authoritarian tendencies (1).
The process of public administration is largely determined by the
legitimacy of the current political power, which in turn is ensured
through the approval and acceptance of the current political
course by the majority of the population. Accordingly, public
opinion has become one of the most important elements of socio-
political governance. The main mass channel providing a
constant communication link between the authorities and citizens
is the mass media, which is due to their role as a key source of
information. Including this is a consequence of the characteristics
inherent in the media, among which: a wide audience coverage,
the efficiency of submitting messages, access to information in
almost all spheres of society's life, etc. Proceeding from the fact
that the mass media are one of the main channels realizing the
connection between the authorities and the population, trust on
the part of citizens to both social institutions plays an important
role here. It is the most important component of ensuring the
effectiveness of vertical and horizontal social relations and ties,
the stability of the socio-political system, and is also an indicator
of the productivity and importance of various social institutions.
Modern media just determine the dependence of the individual on
the existing state institutions, as well as trust in them, through the
broadcast information streams. The way in which journalism and
individual journalists present in society the very culture of trust
or, on the contrary, distrust, is of particular importance.
The author defines the category of "trust in the media" as a
rationally conditioned and emotionally supported attitude of the
audience to the media, the essence of which is the audience's
confidence in the conscientiousness of the media in performing
the function of unbiased and accurate information, presenting all
possible points of view on discussion issues, performing the
watchdog function in relation to the authorities and refusal to
manipulate the audience.
The manifestation of distrust in the media creates a threat of
disruption of the communication link between society and the
government, as well as a lack of trust later. Such development of
events can contribute to the growth of protest sentiments or civil
absenteeism and even lead to destabilization of the socio-political
situation in the state in the future. To identify and prevent such
phenomena in many countries, monitoring of the population's
trust in various social institutions, including the media, is
periodically carried out. Russia is no exception here.
While global consumption of news content has grown over the
past two years, audience confidence in the impartiality of the
media is declining. The quality of information and the separation
of sensation and fact remain a challenge for the media (2).
On the global market, Russia is the state with the lowest level of
trust in the media. This is stated in the survey "Edelman Trust
Barometer 2020" (3), covering 28 countries and about 1.5
thousand respondents in each of them. Thus, 28% of Russians
surveyed trust the media, which is 2% more than in 2019.
Globally, the audience has become more likely to consume news
and share content on social networks. However, since 2019, the
level of trust has only risen by 1% - to 49%, which is considered
as distrust of the media. More than half of the respondents - 57%
believe that the media they regularly read and watch consist of
unverified and inaccurate information. Since 2018, the share of
those who fear that fake news is being used “as a weapon” has
grown by 6 percentage points to 76%.
In this context, manipulation of the mass consciousness plays a
significant role, which is an urgent issue in the study of the
hidden impact on the mass consciousness in different areas of the
information field.
Manipulation of mass consciousness is one of the ways to control
a large number of people by creating illusions and conditions for
controlling behavior, imprisoning the choice of the object of
manipulation by changing ideas or opinions.
The use of the latent influence of the media on the consciousness
of general public can lead to unpredictable consequences for the
social and psychological development of society.
In the Russian Federation, there are no documents regulating the
moral and ethical side of the issue and, in general, the principled
admissibility or inadmissibility of influencing the mass
consciousness in a hidden way. The main legal act in this area is
the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Law of the
Russian Federation on the Mass Media of 1991, which establishes
some principles and forms of activity of television companies.
The mass media are particularly influential in the political sphere.
Firstly, the media perform the function of providing information
and its control, thereby allowing citizens to evaluate the work of
local authorities. Secondly, the mass media bring the most
pressing problems of political life to the public. Also, the media
are able to create a positive or negative image of a particular
politician or party. Thus, the media, urging people to vote for a
certain politician, encourage citizens to take part in the political
life of the state. However, such actions on the part of the media
are not always conditioned by justice and good intentions,
because often the media use political manipulation.
Political manipulation is the process of influencing public opinion
and political behavior (it is the covert control of political
consciousness in order to direct citizens to the right side of
power).
The purpose of political manipulation is to introduce the
necessary political attitude into public life, as well as to impose
one's opinion and induce the masses to take action. Today the
media use a wide variety of means to manipulate people's minds,
such as: spreading fake information; containment of real
information; the imposition of opinions; fake political
publications related to the conduct of an information war, at the
head of which lies the denigration of another country.
With this development of the media, people began to trust the
media less. Based on the study “The Image of a Journalist in the
Mass Consciousness of Russians” conducted by the ZIRCON
research group at the initiative of the Mediastandard Foundation
with the support of the Committee for Civil Initiatives (CCI) in
2018, sociologists concluded that half of Russians do not trust
most media reports.
«Half of the respondents agreed with the statement "I do not
believe most of the messages in the media "(50%, 33%
disagreed), more than half of the respondents did not agree with
the statement "I used to believe what is written in the newspapers,
what says on TV and on the radio" (58%, 33% agreed.) In both
cases, distrust clearly prevails over trust», the report says (5).
Both the ZIRCON study and the earlier mentioned Edelman
study show that the level of trust in the media is reduced. The
reasons for the decline in trust can be different. Some of the main
reasons include:
1) Widespread use of manipulative influence by the media on
citizens, especially during the election campaigns.
2) The commerce of media organizations operating in accordance
with market laws leads to the loss of their functions of "public
service", which negatively affects the attitude of citizens towards
the press. That is, many media outlets depend on financial
support from political and commercial organizations, therefore all
creative and managerial decisions in information activities are
subordinated to the requirements of the market or certain
organizations. To a large extent, all decisions are made without
taking into account social needs, while the audience's requests are
ignored.
3) At the moment, the Internet is overloaded with information
from various sources, most of the messages are not checked for
the accuracy of the facts. The media should take into account that
the rating of trust is reducing and, accordingly, should take all
possible measures. This is also a truth for the Internet space,
because it is in social networks and websites fake information
from secondary sources is most often placed.
To increase trust, it is necessary to increase transparency, what
includes explaining funding and conflicts of interest, clear
separation of analysis and opinion in reportages, links to
underlying sources, encouraging diverse perspectives, explaining
methodology, and inviting feedback. Moreover, the author
believes that the goal is not to get people to trust the media, but to
teach them which media to trust, since definitely not all media are
trustworthy. Thus in today’s confusing landscape, the public
needs to accept more responsibility for using critical thinking and
becoming smarter about what they read, watch and listen to. In
any case, the priority tasks for journalism remain to conquer the
audience and satisfy their needs and interests, reflect the world as
adequately as possible, reveal the truth so that the audience has
the opportunity to make decisions that allow it to achieve optimal
results at minimal cost in realizing its needs.
Литература:
1. «Новый доклад: Freedom in the World 2020 выявил упадок
устоявшихся демократий» [электронный ресурс] – режим
доступа: https://freedomhouse.org (дата обращения: 07.11.2021 г.)
2. «В России зафиксирован самый низкий уровень доверия к СМИ»
[электронный ресурс] – режим доступа: https://adindex.ru (дата
обращения: 07.11. 2021 г.)
3. Global Report «Edelman Trust Barometer 2020» [электронный
ресурс] – режим доступа: https://www.edelman.com (дата
обращения: 07.11.2021 г.)
4. «Доверие к СМИ в современной России» [электронный ресурс] –
режим доступа: https://disser.spbu.ru (дата обращения: 07.11.2021
г.)
5. «Исследование: половина россиян не доверяет большинству
сообщений в СМИ» [электронный ресурс] – режим доступа:
https://ria.ru (дата обращения: 07.11.2021 г.)