Media, Trust and Information

The proposed urgent project has the purpose to collect thick, qualitative material on how citizens’ media trust evolves during the Corona pandemic. During the last two decades discussions of a crisis of trust have been emerging in democratic societies. Contemporary debates about fake news and disinformation have contributed further to the challenges of shrinking trust in especially the media. The Corona pandemic has made research into media trust even more important. In turbulent times, the amount and speed of misinformation, i.e. false information that is spread unknowingly, and disinformation, i.e. false information that is spread deliberately, accelerates. The proposed project will document the development of media trust in Sweden with the help of diaries and in-depth interviews. It is a unique opportunity to see media trust rapidly changing that will allow us to learn for future crises, but also help to re-conceptualize media trust more generally. The collected material will be made accessible for other research projects. The data consists of 6 files, containing the answers to the interview questions for each survey round. The background variables and questions asked in each round are described in the Readme document.