1 00:00:02,860 --> 00:00:15,080 Just. Welcome to Future of Journalism podcast from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. 2 00:00:15,710 --> 00:00:19,090 I'm Federico Cherubini, head of Leadership Development at the Institute. 3 00:00:21,220 --> 00:00:28,140 This is a special series on our podcast and it's dedicated to Digital News Report 2022. 4 00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:34,890 Over seven episodes we are diving into the most comprehensive piece of research on news consumption around the world. 5 00:00:35,780 --> 00:00:44,570 In this episode of the series, we're joined by Director Research Richard Fletcher, who has authored a chapter on the report on polarisation in News. 6 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:50,060 We look at where the news audiences really are as primaries and some, I think, 7 00:00:50,150 --> 00:00:57,890 and whether there has been any change since 2016 and how people perceive polarisation in their country's news environment. 8 00:00:58,460 --> 00:01:00,980 Richard, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. 9 00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:10,430 So you chapter in the report sets out to determine the level of polarisation amongst news audiences in four countries. 10 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:14,300 First, can you explain the term polarisation? 11 00:01:14,330 --> 00:01:19,310 What does it mean, especially in regards to news audiences and how you can measure it? 12 00:01:20,580 --> 00:01:29,010 Well, normally when people use the term polarisation that they usually referring to the kind of extent of the differences in attitudes, 13 00:01:29,370 --> 00:01:38,070 beliefs between different people or different groups, or sometimes how people feel about those in different groups. 14 00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:43,560 But here, very interested in something slightly different. So we're interested in news audience behaviour. 15 00:01:44,130 --> 00:01:49,890 So the tendency for people to use said news outlets and not to use others. 16 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:58,320 So in the U.K., for example, we know that an outlet like the BBC has quite mixed audiences. 17 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:03,810 But also we know that people on the left are more likely to use outlets like the Guardian, 18 00:02:04,140 --> 00:02:08,760 and people on the right are more likely to use news outlets like The Mail. 19 00:02:09,510 --> 00:02:16,410 So what we're interested in is measuring the extent to which people behave like this and then to compare across countries. 20 00:02:16,860 --> 00:02:23,730 And we do this by looking at the online and offline audiences for the main news outlets in each country, 21 00:02:24,390 --> 00:02:28,800 and then seeing how different they are from the net, from the population as a whole. 22 00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:35,999 So if a country has lots of outlets with strongly left leaning audiences and strongly right leaning audiences, 23 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:40,740 then we can think of it as having a relatively high degree of news audience polarisation. 24 00:02:41,010 --> 00:02:50,130 However, if outlets have mainly mixed or centrist audiences, then the degree of news audience polarisation is relatively low. 25 00:02:51,810 --> 00:02:57,390 You chose, I think, as we mentioned, four countries Norway, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. 26 00:02:57,870 --> 00:03:07,649 Can you tell us why you chose these countries specifically? I think the main reason was that we expected to be able to observe differences between 27 00:03:07,650 --> 00:03:12,480 between those countries so that each represents different types of media system, 28 00:03:13,020 --> 00:03:17,560 which means, for example, they have different levels of funding for public service media, 29 00:03:17,580 --> 00:03:23,819 different levels of journalistic professionalism, and also different levels of political parallelism. 30 00:03:23,820 --> 00:03:31,830 So that's the extent to which news outlets reflect the views of said political parties or political groups, especially historically. 31 00:03:32,700 --> 00:03:35,939 And we know that also just more broadly, 32 00:03:35,940 --> 00:03:44,730 that countries like the UK and the US are usually thought of as more politically polarised than Norway and Germany. 33 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:52,410 The digital news report team first started measuring polarisation in 2016. 34 00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:58,290 Since then, there has been a series of divisive ballots, 35 00:03:58,290 --> 00:04:04,680 including an election involving Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, as well as the UK Brexit referendum. 36 00:04:05,310 --> 00:04:12,780 The media, of course, play a key role in covering these and perhaps influencing people's decision around how to vote. 37 00:04:14,100 --> 00:04:19,350 Gut instinct might say that polarisation has increased since 2016. 38 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:29,940 Is this true? As it's been a shift? Well, at least when it comes to the news audience polarisation and at least from our data, the answer is no. 39 00:04:30,170 --> 00:04:34,670 News audience polarisation doesn't seem to have changed much since 2016. 40 00:04:35,300 --> 00:04:41,150 So in other words, the extent to which people gravitate towards certain news outlets based on their 41 00:04:41,150 --> 00:04:44,630 political beliefs doesn't seem to have changed in each of these four countries. 42 00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:49,219 But at the same time, of course, that doesn't mean that other types of polarisation, 43 00:04:49,220 --> 00:04:52,540 such as the ones I mentioned earlier, have stayed the same as well. 44 00:04:52,550 --> 00:04:57,110 So ideological polarisation amongst the public, it may have shifted. 45 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:01,970 An elite political discourse may have also become more polarised than it was. 46 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:09,559 And of course, that's particularly important because that might also mean that the political position is represented by major news outlets, 47 00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:14,299 and that coverage may have sort of drifted further apart ideologically. 48 00:05:14,300 --> 00:05:20,209 But I said we're focussed here on news audience behaviour, at least this is that hasn't changed since 2016. 49 00:05:20,210 --> 00:05:26,450 So people are still navigating the news environment in the same way, even though they may have changed. 50 00:05:28,310 --> 00:05:35,959 Coming to the actual results of what you found in the survey, what differences do you find between countries and you know, 51 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:40,250 can you tell us which of the four shows the most polarisation amongst news audiences? 52 00:05:41,390 --> 00:05:41,490 Well, 53 00:05:41,510 --> 00:05:50,810 the U.S. says that the highest level of news audience polarisation and this is because it has a lot of outlets basically with left leaning audience. 54 00:05:51,070 --> 00:06:01,280 There's also a handful of outlets with strongly right leaning audiences and relatively few outlets with mixed or centrist audiences. 55 00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:07,219 So there's lots of outlets with strongly skewed audiences that the UK has the second 56 00:06:07,220 --> 00:06:12,940 highest level of news audience polarisation and in some ways it's similar to the US. 57 00:06:12,950 --> 00:06:20,600 But the main difference is that it has some outlets such as the BBC and other large TV brands that attract 58 00:06:21,710 --> 00:06:28,070 audiences from both sides of the political spectrum and also those who who self-identify as being in the centre. 59 00:06:28,520 --> 00:06:37,159 And this ultimately lowers the the level of news audience polarisation that we see as a whole across across the U.K., in Germany, 60 00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:47,479 in Norway, there are fewer outlets with skewed audiences if compared to the US and the UK, most attracts mixed or centrist audiences. 61 00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:52,370 And those that attract slightly skewed audiences tend to be niche, 62 00:06:52,370 --> 00:06:58,460 politically focussed outlets that have small audiences, so they have a relatively small effect on the overall picture. 63 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:06,200 I think the other thing to point out is that even in a country like the U.S. and to a certain extent the U.K., 64 00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:12,920 the kind of overall level of news audience polarisation that we see is, is is fairly low. 65 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:19,970 And what I mean by that is that it's quite far away from what we might think of as the theoretical maximum level of polarisation. 66 00:07:20,330 --> 00:07:28,340 And so even though we do see differences across countries, none of them, I would say, are massively polarised in terms of news audience behaviour. 67 00:07:29,470 --> 00:07:37,930 Here to tell us a bit more about what of you know what about a news environment makes the polarisation fairly low. 68 00:07:37,960 --> 00:07:40,150 What are the reason for low polarisation? 69 00:07:41,890 --> 00:07:49,270 Well, as I mentioned, having and having large outlets in particular that have mixed or centrist audiences tends to help. 70 00:07:50,350 --> 00:08:00,880 And at least in parts of Northern Europe, public service media tends to provide this, but also in many cases, 71 00:08:01,150 --> 00:08:06,550 large commercial TV outlets and also large newspaper brands, kind of kind of as well. 72 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:12,909 Of course, you know, the audience does it often in response to that, to the content. 73 00:08:12,910 --> 00:08:14,100 And this matters a lot. 74 00:08:14,110 --> 00:08:24,370 So if outlets produce coverage, that is less tie it to a particular political position than we might expect it to attract a more mixed audience. 75 00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:28,900 For that reason, it's also worth pointing out that in a country like Germany, 76 00:08:28,900 --> 00:08:39,280 the proportion who self-identified with the political right or the political left in the first place is a bit lower than in a country like the UK, 77 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:46,120 for example. And ultimately this can have an effect on the kind of the level of news audience polarisation that's possible. 78 00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:52,270 But I want to reiterate that it's really primarily influenced by behaviour and not this and not this, this fact. 79 00:08:53,510 --> 00:09:02,390 You mentioned that, you know, since 2016, there has been a massive change in terms of light level of polarisation, of news audiences. 80 00:09:02,690 --> 00:09:07,969 And this is despite significant changes in online news use overall. 81 00:09:07,970 --> 00:09:12,530 And on the online news environment, thinking like smartphone usage, 82 00:09:12,530 --> 00:09:18,280 divided social media and aggregators as gateways to news paywalls and digital first news brand. 83 00:09:18,290 --> 00:09:26,540 We've seen a lot of change yet. This measure of polarisation, of news audiences have it doesn't seem to have changed that much. 84 00:09:27,140 --> 00:09:28,670 What do you think is down to? 85 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:41,450 Well, I think that changes in in news audience polarisation possible, but it's primarily influenced by the outlets that people choose to use. 86 00:09:41,450 --> 00:09:53,040 And despite some of the changes that you've described, people tend to use the same big newspaper and TV outlets that they always have. 87 00:09:53,060 --> 00:09:56,360 Even if we look at online news use, 88 00:09:57,710 --> 00:10:04,250 other data from the digital news report shows that in most cases the lists of the most widely used brands tends to stay 89 00:10:04,250 --> 00:10:12,500 pretty similar year on year because people again are going back to the the same news sources that they always have. 90 00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:20,980 And I suspect that when it comes to polarisation, any changes that will that we see will be in the in the long term. 91 00:10:20,990 --> 00:10:25,430 So thinking and perhaps in terms of decades rather than years. 92 00:10:26,060 --> 00:10:30,680 But the fact that we can see quite considerable differences between between countries shows that 93 00:10:30,680 --> 00:10:35,780 if there are changes and there are different is the method we use should be able to detect them. 94 00:10:35,780 --> 00:10:43,770 It's just that we haven't seen them since 2016. Turning to changes amongst individual news outlets, 95 00:10:44,370 --> 00:10:52,710 has there been any significant change amongst audiences of particular news outlets in Kiev analysed in the report? 96 00:10:53,010 --> 00:10:59,879 And any explanation for this? We do see some changes at the level of individual outlets. 97 00:10:59,880 --> 00:11:06,320 So in some cases, outlets perhaps have a more mixed or centrist audience than they had in 2016. 98 00:11:06,330 --> 00:11:11,400 Others have have become more skewed towards the left or the right. 99 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:18,209 I think it's difficult to know from our data what's actually behind this, but there are some possible explanations. 100 00:11:18,210 --> 00:11:21,780 So if an outlet, for example, has a more centrist audience, 101 00:11:21,780 --> 00:11:26,370 that's perhaps because they're attracting more people via social media where people 102 00:11:26,370 --> 00:11:30,899 can be instantly exposed to news and it's less down to their political preferences, 103 00:11:30,900 --> 00:11:37,920 what news they encounter. In other cases, the introduction of a paywall might make a difference, 104 00:11:39,450 --> 00:11:44,429 and in others it may simply because the outlets changes editorial line and therefore 105 00:11:44,430 --> 00:11:47,820 is appealing to different groups of people that perhaps it wasn't before. 106 00:11:48,030 --> 00:11:53,129 But I said it's difficult to know this format from our data alone, but we do see some changes for the audiences, 107 00:11:53,130 --> 00:12:01,800 for individual events outside from the this focus on the chapter on the four specific countries that you look at. 108 00:12:01,810 --> 00:12:11,370 You also asked in the general survey and to all 46 markets about reception of news media polarisation in their respective countries. 109 00:12:11,730 --> 00:12:13,620 Can you tell us exactly what did you ask them? 110 00:12:15,170 --> 00:12:23,630 Well, we asked him how politically close together or far apart they think the major news outlets are in that country. 111 00:12:23,990 --> 00:12:28,250 Of course, if people say that they think outlets are politically far apart, 112 00:12:28,250 --> 00:12:33,790 this would this would indicate that people are perceiving a high degree of polarisation. 113 00:12:33,790 --> 00:12:38,210 And if people say that close together, that express that perceiving a lower degree of polarisation. 114 00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:44,830 And as always, we do see a lot of differences across countries, across regions when we ask this. 115 00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:57,350 But on the whole, at least with the data we have, it seems to map on reasonably well to what we see in terms of patterns of news audience behaviour. 116 00:12:58,970 --> 00:13:02,270 But again, this it's important to reiterate this is it, this is people's perception. 117 00:13:03,380 --> 00:13:08,750 And and there are also sort of important differences between what people perceive and what people what is actually happening. 118 00:13:08,750 --> 00:13:12,200 And we can identify that in some cases with this data. 119 00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:17,600 Did you see any? What are the main takeaways from country to country? 120 00:13:17,720 --> 00:13:26,049 Variation from country to country? I said I think it mainly maps to what we know from news audience polarisation. 121 00:13:26,050 --> 00:13:35,890 So countries which tend to have a lower level of news audience polarisation tend to also have lower levels of perceived polarisation and vice versa. 122 00:13:37,550 --> 00:13:44,750 I think sometimes there is a sort of like a narrative, maybe not really data in form, 123 00:13:44,750 --> 00:13:51,470 it seems maybe from from your report, you often hear people saying is more divided than ever. 124 00:13:52,340 --> 00:13:58,820 And your chapter seems to be saying that news audiences are not has more divided ever. 125 00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:03,680 What is why is this narrative at odds? What can you tell us more about this? 126 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:10,730 Well, I think it is something that you hear people say, and I think it's often because people are very much caught up in the presence. 127 00:14:12,310 --> 00:14:15,360 And it may feel like society is more divided than ever. 128 00:14:15,370 --> 00:14:24,010 But at the same time, we can often think back over several decades and remember bitter political disputes from the from the past. 129 00:14:24,820 --> 00:14:30,310 And then and perhaps that helps us put in put into context what we're going through today. 130 00:14:30,340 --> 00:14:31,749 That being said, of course, I mean, 131 00:14:31,750 --> 00:14:39,970 there are some or there may be some aspects of polarisation that are becoming stronger over time in particular countries. 132 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:46,660 So again, elite discourse may becoming more polarised, people's attitudes may becoming more polarised as well. 133 00:14:46,930 --> 00:14:53,139 But what I think our research can do in looking specifically at these audience polarisation is, 134 00:14:53,140 --> 00:14:59,350 I think, is to help us understand the role of the media in any changes that we see. 135 00:14:59,890 --> 00:15:04,000 And I think, as I mentioned earlier, because we can see that overall, 136 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:09,340 even in a country like the US, the level of news audience polarisation is is relatively low. 137 00:15:09,610 --> 00:15:14,689 That helps us think about the, you know, the potential of the media and in shaping some of these changes. 138 00:15:14,690 --> 00:15:20,920 And it helps us to perhaps look past some of the more simplistic accounts of change that involve the media, 139 00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:27,030 which are often predicated on the idea that everyone is is making highly political and 140 00:15:27,100 --> 00:15:32,620 news media choices and people are ending up in a highly siloed information environment. 141 00:15:32,620 --> 00:15:34,900 And that's that's just not what we see in our data. 142 00:15:36,210 --> 00:15:42,300 Richard, thank you so much for helping us understand a bit better this very complicated issue and joining the podcast today. 143 00:15:42,840 --> 00:15:51,730 Thank you. Our guest today was Richard Fletcher, director of research at the Institute and one of the authors of the recent news report. 144 00:15:52,850 --> 00:15:57,830 Thank you all for listening to this episode of Digital News Report 2022 Part Series. 145 00:15:58,700 --> 00:16:02,510 You can catch up on other episodes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. 146 00:16:03,170 --> 00:16:09,020 If you want to read the report in full, you can find it online and Digital News Report about August 20, 22. 147 00:16:09,860 --> 00:16:11,989 And if you don't want to miss any news from the Institute, 148 00:16:11,990 --> 00:16:17,960 you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter by clicking the link on our Twitter bio or on our home page. 149 00:16:19,220 --> 00:16:24,500 This was Feature Journalism, a podcast by the Writers Institute. I'm going to be and we'll be back soon.