Decreased British public confidence in their media

What is the reason for the decline of British public confidence in their media?

Why is the BBC’s popularity declining in poor areas of the UK?

What has the media done to prevent its decline in popularity in the UK?

How has the lack of adequate monitoring of social media in the UK affected the decline in media popularity?

Over the years, British confidence in their country’s media has declined. People say that they do not receive the good news from the press, and the media censors and distorts the facts. Polls also show that British confidence in the media is declining daily.

 Coverage of trivial news in the UK media

The Oxford University’s Reuters Institute poll shows that British people have lost 20 per cent of their trust in the British media over the past five years. The suppression of some news items by making the unimportant news items essential and related to the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Decreased British confidence in the BBC

A survey by the Times shows that a large number of Britons have lost confidence in the BBC network on which they pay subscriptions over the past year. Half of the British population has concluded that the BBC no longer expresses their values ​​of interest and is not worth watching. By 2020, about a third of public opinion had such an idea. Inadequate coverage of the network over the past years over Brexit and the Covid-19 epidemic has sparked dissatisfaction with the media in the country.

Declining BBC popularity in poor areas of UK

It is noteworthy that recent BBC research shows that the network is more popular among the affluent than the poor. This, along with the Times’s research into the network’s declining popularity over the past years, is evidence of rising poverty in the UK. Recent statistics and analysis by charities in the UK show that an increasing number of people in employment and well-being before the Covid-19 crisis have become unemployed. Before the Covid-19 problem, many food bankers were impoverished. But new research shows that the continuation of this crisis and rising living costs have widened the class gap among sections of society.

Reasons for the decline in media popularity in the UK

But the decline in the BBC’s popularity is exacerbated when UK media watchdog Ofcom research shows that the media network has been impartially lower than its competitors such as Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky. According to a survey, 54% of adults in the UK believe that BBC news is not neutral. A survey by YouGov also found that 44% of Britons believe that this media network misrepresents their values. Of these, 48% of older people believe that the BBC reflects their views. This is reported at 51% in the north of England and 47% in Scotland.

Media measures to avoid declining popularity

Of those who voted for Brexit, 58% were dissatisfied with the position of the BBC. However, a survey conducted in 2016 showed that 62% of Britons were satisfied with the performance of the BBC. The network’s decline in popularity has come as the BBC’s director-general has warned staff to avoid political harassment on social media not to be fired. 

Tim Davie, who took over the helm of the BBC in September 2020, says he will discipline employees who violate the directive and continue to dismiss them. “Where we can take disciplinary action, where we can take people off Twitter,” he said. Asked for clarification on what taking people “off” Twitter means, Davie said that “if they want to work for the BBC”, staff could be told to suspend their accounts. Davie also said he was “prepared to take the appropriate disciplinary action to termination” for those who breach impartiality rules.

Lack of independence in the British media

According to experts, the BBC can’t be an independent news network because the country’s general budget funds it. Hence, its activities are under the supervision of the UK government. The BBC’s budget is set by the government, approved by parliament and paid for by the people. Naturally, the spending of the budget is under the government’s control according to the country’s macro policies.

Declining public confidence in social media in the UK

Reports indicate that public trust in social media in the UK has declined due to growing concerns about inadequate oversight of social media. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, less than a quarter of Britons trust social media. This study shows that the decline in trust in giant social media companies is due to the British feeling that these companies are not working hard enough to solve the necessary problems. According to the survey, about 70% of Britons believe that social media companies aren’t doing enough to prevent illegal and immoral behaviour in their media. In addition, another 70% think that these companies are not doing much to prevent the sharing of extremist content. Above all, 69% of people believe that these companies do not make much effort to solve the problem of online bullying.

Insufficient monitoring of social networks in the UK

While more than a third of the British population believed that social media was not good for society. 75% of people thought that social media had gone so far as to keep people busy all the time and profit from their loneliness. About 64% of Britons believe that social media companies are not adequately monitored. However, 63% of people think these companies are not transparent, and 62% believe that they steal people’s information without their knowledge.

Decreased British confidence in media news

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, public support for long-standing news media and purely online media has increased as public confidence in social media has declined. Traditional media, defined as radio and television networks and the press, have seen a 13% increase in popular support in this report, reaching 61 per cent, the highest level since 2012. However, it is worth noting that an increasing number of people are turning away from media news, and trust in the media is only 32%. In addition, one-third of the total British population acknowledged that they were less likely to follow the news in the media than in the past.

Media trust in the UK has declined in recent years. The British no longer trust the media and believe that they are not independent and neutral. Their dependence on the government is another reason that has led to a decline in public confidence in the media. Given the conditions created, it seems that trust in the press will decrease in the coming years, and their credibility among the people will be lost.