Do People Trust Mass Media Anymore? The “Greek Gate” Tells the Story

Social Media have been at the forefront of information, with millions of people choosing them to read the news. However, a serious issue that has come up recently is if they are trustworthy and why people have given up traditional media such as TV, newspapers, radio etc

That’s why we tried to shed light on this phenomenon of the modern times with a big survey aiming to better understand the downfall of traditional media in Greece.

84.6% of people get their news from social media platforms

The vast majority of the participants in our survey said that they prefer social media for their information and news. Indeed, with a little bit of personal observation, someone could find this statement true, because even traditional media have jumped into the social media world, in order to familiarize themselves with younger audiences and the general population who has turned their backs on television, magazines etc. The most serious problem observed, in the case of Greece, is the extreme partisanship of the mainstream media.

A really interesting statistic is the following one:

54.2% of the participants in InfotainmentWise’s survey stated that they believe social media are more trustworthy than traditional greek media, while television’s trustworthiness is only 7.5%.

Why have we gotten so sick of traditional media?

Greek media have fallen into many traps during their existence. Some of them are trying to manipulate news and turn them into propaganda (a young boy killed by a police officer) and some have had very close relationships with the political parties of our country.

According to our survey 76.6% of greek people accuse greek mainstream media of not being objective and not informing the audience correctly. This phenomenon started during the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis, when media and politicians came closer.

“I would stop the governmental economic support of the traditional greek media. We can’t combine objectiveness with strong relations with the government”

“We demand objective information”

These were only some of the answers pointing out the serious problem that greek media face all these years, while loosing the trust of the general population. Generalizing these statistics, we are sure that all of you reading this article can relate to some degree with the stated facts.

A new phenomenon that has greek people fuming is not only the fact that a big portion of traditional greek media support the government, but also that every other opinion is not represented and if it is, it’s mocked and dismissed.

How Do People Get Informed Through Social Media?

It is clear nowadays, that especially young people turn to social media for their daily news observation. But where do they get their information from?

• From the social media accounts of traditional media (76.9%)
• From citizen journalism (50%)
• From self-called survey professionals (23.6%)
• Combination of independent media, the internet (16%)

The statistics and observations from these numbers are up for a fruitful conversation. First of all, people are informed through the internet, but prefer to gather information by social media accounts of traditional media. The percentage of information from the so-called “MOJO” phenomenon is pretty high too.

However, there is a major problem concerning us… The rise of the self-called survey professionals is pretty controversial. How can people that are not taught the right ways of conducting surveys and getting results, inform and educate us? When someone with zero theoritical knowledge tries to conduct a survey, they won’t know how to come up with the right results and information, so the outcome is… Misinformation and Disinformation.

The same concern comes up when we ask our audience. 80% of the people participating in our survey said that their main concern with social media is the big danger of fake news and misinformation and how that can affect the well-being of our world.

Which are the countries that are examples of objective and trustworthy journalism?

Pretty much every survey conducted has shown that the scandinavian countries have the most trustworthy media on the planet. Countries like Sweden, Denmkark, Finland and Iceland get the top spots.

Other countries that have gained the respect of international audiences and the respect of the participants in the InfotainmentWise survey are France and England.

Is there a solution to the problem?

Concerning the traditional media, the general image is that of a corrupt system that tries to remain tied to politicians. A solution that will most likely not happen is that the greek media will stop their relations with politicians and parties and go back to objective and trustworthy journalism.

From the social media side, things are not looking really well too. Deepfake technology and fake news are problems that if not solved will cause big problems to societies around the world. We have seen it happen (Capitol Attacks) and that’s only the beginning.

*227 people participated in our survey