The data shows the levels of trust in different news sources globally over a nine-year period. The most obvious feature of the data is that there has been an overall decrease in trust in all news media sources over the period.
At the start of the period, traditional media was the most popular at 64%, while search engines were second at around 63%. However, by the end of the nine-year period, the trust levels of these two media sources had generally dropped to 50% and 56% respectively. The third most popular media source at the beginning of the period was social media at 45% followed by owned media at only 40%. By 2020, social media had become the least trusted source, at 35%, and owned media finding only 42% trust. Despite the general downward trajectory of all media sources, there was a dramatic increase in trust with all media sources between 2017 and 2018. However, this increase proved to be temporary, as trust levels in all categories fell significantly towards the end of the period.
There are many possible explanations for the general decline in trust of news sources over the nine years. However, one possible interpretation is that the internet has challenged how people access news and as such has created a more critical populous. Because people have access to more information than in the past, information from new sources, especially traditional media, can more easily be challenged.