Study Finds Google Is More Trusted Than Traditional Media 155
According to a study by market research company Zogby International, people trust Google, Apple, and Microsoft more than the traditional media. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter scored lowest on the trust scale, but still soundly beat the media. From the article: "The traditional media received little sympathy from the public, with only eight percent of all adults and six percent of young adults saying they trusted them."
The elephant in the summery (Score:1, Insightful)
Who shall be the first to say it. Rupert Murdoch?
Oh and of course, I do realise that the left has much bias aswell. But R.M. does take it to a new level.
Wow, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't trust the propaganda arms of massive multinational corporations?! I'm shocked!
Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Trust them about what ? And who the hell is Zogby ?
Nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
News media has always been heavily biased one way or another. There's nothing wrong with this. The problem comes with the source of the bias. It used to be small news outlets trying to stick it to the community's most apparent "bad guys" like big business or the government. They were small and independent. However now, the largest and most influential companies in the world are the owners of the mainstream news media. Disney or Murdoch or it doesn't matter, most people know by now that the companies funding mainstream media are doing it for profit only, and have only that interest in mind. If you see something seemingly controversial on the news it's only because that organization feels everyone agrees (or at least, everyone they think watches their show.)
However, I find it worrying that people trust google. They are just as rabidly chomping at the bit of profit as Disney or NBC, or whatever. They don't have an altruistic plank in their yachts. They pretend to "not be evil" but regularly exert their dominance in public exposure via the web to piss all over other markets in an effort to clear a path for their own business strategy. They make things "free" so nobody can compete in conventional terms, forcing them into advertising revenue or similar structures and guess who has a huge monopoly on advertising online? Yeah... so before you go suckling the teet of google or similar companies, remember what it is they are after in the end.
That said, it's still more understandable to view a source like google as more trustworthy, but the problem is that google does not report on the news, they only repeat it from the other, less trusted sources, so it's sort of pointless to compare them.
When it comes to trusting information, it is acceptable to think the official source will be more truthful, even if occasionally they are not. News media gets a pass for some reason, maybe citing bad information, but authoritative organizations get panned for any lies, even accidental unimportant ones. So when an organization like MS or Apple or Google lies about something, it's either well known right away or it's well hidden, and the latter is much more common in my experience.
Not trusting social networking sites ... well that's just a surprisingly, unusually rational position to hold by the general public. Personally I "trust" twitter itself more than facebook, but trust the information less. I trust facebook to constantly try to screw me the way I described google doing it, subversively, for their own profit, under the guise of helping. Just see the constant quiet changes made to their privacy policies as cases where they didn't get away with it. Twitter is easier to trust just because they don't promise anything. You can protect your tweets, but that's about it. You can block followers but you know your tweets and most info is public. Twitter hasn't changed these policies, there is barely anything to change anyway. When I use twitter, I feel it's very obvious what my privacy expectations are. However, the information coming via twitter is less trustworthy than overhearing gabby women at the local mall. It's the same thing, really, except with infinitely more anonymity to hide your lies and innuendo behind.
"The Media", huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
"The Media" is such a loaded phrase these days, that it's no surprise nobody "trusts" them. Years of politicians and everyone else slamming "traditional media", "Big media", "The Liberal Media", and "The Right-wing Media" mean that everyone associates "The Media" with whatever group they disagree with.
Liberals hate "The Media" because, to them, it means "Faux News" and all the other anti-facts news organizations they've been trained to hate.
Conservatives hate "The Media" because, to them, it means "The Liberal Media", which seems to mean anything OTHER than Fox News.
Is anyone surprised that everyone hates a loaded word? Why not just ask if people trust "Terrorists"?
Google is spam (Score:1, Insightful)
Traditional media is coming to a natural end, no paywall, whether there own or Googles will save them, but to rate Google as trustworthy is like saying BP cares for the environment!
media = entertainment (Score:1, Insightful)
the right wing media strokes the egos of republicans.
the left wing media strokes the egos of democrats.
forcing people to confront reality is a liability when competing networks are entertaining their audience instead.
Twitter (Score:2, Insightful)
It's pretty transparent and as honest as the people who post on it..
Re:The elephant in the summery (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me crazy, but a poll with such generic ideas of trust seems almost as useless as a poll about which type of tree people trust the most. Damn, those Nordic Pines look a bit shifty...
Re:The elephant in the summery (Score:5, Insightful)
It's much, much harder with media that claims to be unbiased, but of course, is -- because all of them are. The BBC being the perfect example. They claim to be unbiased, but are very much not. It is, however, often hard to tell what their underlying spin is. Thus, I would never ever trust one single thing they say.
Actually, it's not hard to read through the BBC's bias once you realise where it comes from. Because of the way it is set up and regulated, it is in a near permanent state of fear of being accused of bias, which means that it tends to give disproportionate prominence to the views of those most likely to complain. That means that somebody who says the Earth is flat gets equal time to somebody who says that it's round (exaggerating here, but that's the mechanism at work). Once you realise that, it's usually not hard to tell which views are those of people who know what's going on and which views are the screwballs'. What you can be pretty sure of with the BBC is that they don't make their news stories up, because the regulators come down on them like a ton of bricks if they do. Unlike the press, which invents news with impunity.
I bloody well hope this is a joke (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't people trust twitter/social media? Because even the most Idols addled mind can figure out that a news source with absolutely no accountability or even traceability is totally and utterly worthless.
Twitter: A fly is in my room.
Judge this. You can't. It is is a claim but you don't know who claims it, if the person who started the account is still in control of it and have no way to verify or even know what room the person is talking about or if they can accurately determine a fly from another insect.
Mind you, most often when people claim they "trust" a media, they are actually saying "these people say what I want to hear". Someone who doesn't want to give up his SUV is more likely to trust Fox news when it reports global warming is a hoax. People react violently when exposed to a source of information that contradicts what they want to believe. And no, this is NOT just a right-winger thing.
With ever more sources of information it has also become very easy to completely isolate yourself from anything that distresses you. Back when everyone read their OWN newspaper, people at least READ the newspaper. Now kids get their info from twitter and facebook and nothing else. Their source of news, they idea of investigative journalism is "he heard that someone said".
Well RabbitWho shows this, he thinks that because the entity twittering pretends to be a "normal" human being that he/she/it is trustworthy. Because of course nobody could setup bogus accounts to start spreading propoganda over twitter or facebook. No, google bombing does NOT exist in social media. No guerilla marketting of political ideas. Some teen says something so it must be true because... why? How do you know WHO that person really is and wether they should tell the truth let alone the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Because the easiest way to be biased in reporting is to leave out tiny details.
Like how Turkey so upset about Israel killing Turks crossing into Israeli waters went into Iraq to kill Koerdish civlians at the same time. My my, how convenient their righteous indignation kept their own actions from the media. Convenient.
Re:The elephant in the summery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Traditional Media...LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
shouldn't that be a sign to the powers that be ...
Except that TPTB are even less trusted than the media.
do you honestly believe our country could be more divided ...
If you don't think it could be worse, that's just a limit to your powers of imagination.
B to the S (Score:2, Insightful)
the public is a teenage girl (Score:2, Insightful)
traditional media is her fuddy duddy middle aged father who has her best interests at heart, but she hates him
the web is her shiny new teenage boyfriend, who she's gaga over, but he's devoid of concern for her well-being and just wants to get in her pants
misplaced trust due lack of experience, that's all this study means
visit us again in 10 years, when as a jaded, betrayed, defiled, used, cynical, heartbroken 20 something chick, she looks at her dad/ traditional media in a new light
there's no shortcut to real world experience, and the curmudgeon killjoy screaming the truth in the corner is never listened to, which is all anyone's comments on this study amounts to
Re:Traditional Media...LOL (Score:3, Insightful)
So, actually, the country was more corporate controlled when the Fairness Doctrine was in force (although it was more united).
Re:The elephant in the summery (Score:5, Insightful)
My point, which you've handily illustrated, is that even though Enderle and Zogby usually spout complete bullshit, there are still many apologists suffering from chronic cognitive dissonance who queue up to use them as reliable sources because their random guesses are right half of the time.
Note carefully that Enderle wasn't "predicting" Apples' future strategy, he was talking about what they were just about to announce, and was wrong on every count. By that measure of success, I could predict that Ford's are about to announce a flying car, and in 50 years or so, I'll look like a frikkin' genius.
Re:Weaning your self from Google (Score:3, Insightful)
As for YouTube, they definitely log what videos you visit. There was once this feature you could see what your friends were watching and what they are watching now. That's what I meant. They will montetize that.
But why exactly is this a problem for you?
I'm all for privacy where it makes sense (it's probably a bad thing if people can actively see that I'm not at home, know my home address, and that I recently purchased a huge flat-screen TV); but I see absolutely no reason to worry that Google knows what I've been watching on YouTube recently, or searching for, or what websites I've been visiting.
Similar thing to wandering around naked in my apartment with the curtains open (as I often do first thing in the morning after getting out of bed and before my morning shower). If my neighbours watch me, I really don't care (although being an overweight balding guy, I'm probably not that worth watching). If they make videos and post them online, I also don't care. When they film me leaving my apartment and record me hiding my spare-key under the pot plant* and post THAT online with a time-stamp, there's a problem.
* Note that my girlfriend has my spare key, and I do not have a pot plant.
Re:Weaning your self from Google (Score:3, Insightful)
They know who you are,
By name and number only, not personality.
where you live,
So does anyone with a phone book. I really don't care. I don't expect Google or anyone else to come kick in my door anytime soon.
what you think
No, they really don't. If they think they do, they are terribly mistaken. If anyone thinks they can know what a person thinks, based purely by their actions on the internet, they are seriously underestimating the process of thinking within the human mind.
who you're communicating with
Correction, they know who I am communicating with on the internet. That's very different from who I am communicating with.
where you're trying to go
Half the time, even I don't know that.
what websites you're a member of
Who cares? I sign up for memberships to lots of websites with fake personal information just to use them as throwaways at my convenience. For example, I have over 36 web based e-mail accounts that I use for nothing more than plugging into, 'e-mail address?' fields on other random websites. I haven't checked those inboxes in years.
what you're trying to find out
No, they know what I am looking at. Quite often, that has nothing to do with what I am trying to find out. Usually I have to talk to a person to establish a proper correlation between what I am trying to find out and what I should look for.
what you're buying
Yeah, I do all my grocery shopping online. Also, I purchase all of the parts I need for maintaining my gizmos online...not at local hardware stores or anything....because, you know, waiting a week for a part that I could just buy today makes a lot of sense.
what news you've been exposed to
I didn't realize Google owned the local newspaper copies that my coworkers leave in the lunchroom every day...
To make my point clear...I think you are overestimating things by far. Either that, or you really do spend far too much time on the internet.
Re:Mainstream media is distrusted with good reason (Score:3, Insightful)
That pretty much killed all sympathy for the traditional media for me. If I hadn't been fortunate enough to be cynical AND not trust traditional media, I would have been manipulated by fear and anger by what felt like most of the rest of America - which was itself a media-created exaggeration. There were so many dissenting voices, simply ignored.
I mean, tens of thousands march on a street to protest the way in Iraq, and it's a blip on the news. A few hundred honkies gather in a public park to sit in lawnchairs with misspelled signs and hate on taxes, and it's a revolution in the making? That should tell you all you need to know about the integrity of traditional media - and why people aren't trusting it.
Re:The elephant in the summery (Score:3, Insightful)
Conceeding the point for a moment, bias is not an absolute quantity. It's like security in that regard. Any security system can be cracked, but that doesn't mean they're all equally insecure. Leave your valuables unguarded in the street is not a rational strategy for securing them.
Similarly some news sources are much less reliable than others. When we say "biased" we generally mean a source that deliberate seeks to mislead, rather than one that occasionally and unconsciously shades its language.
Re:The elephant in the summery (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny that, cause I've tried to watch Rachel Maddow and Keith Oberman for the same reasons. I didn't bother to fact check, because their arguments always seem to be self-contradictory. Of course, they'd always bring in an "expert" that completely agreed with their premises, and then call themselves informed. You always see someone with opposing viewpoints in the Fox panels, but I swear they hunt far and wide for the stupidest people they can find.