Post by Alkemi on Nov 23, 2018 19:20:26 GMT 1
Study shows 60% of Britons believe in conspiracy theories
www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/23/study-shows-60-of-britons-believe-in-conspiracy-theories?fbclid=IwAR3fOlCBPHGftsaSFDTBi0gWzqGTyMQGcYeIB3gdANv7HRAdlx45-9ptVR8
www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/23/study-shows-60-of-britons-believe-in-conspiracy-theories?fbclid=IwAR3fOlCBPHGftsaSFDTBi0gWzqGTyMQGcYeIB3gdANv7HRAdlx45-9ptVR8
The researchers also found:
• 15% of leave voters and 11% of remain voters in Britain believed that, regardless of who was officially in charge in government, the world was run by a secret global cabal of people who control events together.
• The most widespread conspiracy belief in the UK, shared by 44% of people, was that “even though we live in what’s called a democracy, a few people will always run things in this country anyway”.
• Mistrust of authority was high in the UK, with 77% of people trusting journalists “not much” or “not at all”; 76% distrusting British government ministers; and 74% distrusting company bosses.
• Friends and family, by contrast, were trusted by 87% and 89% of respondents respectively, potentially adding credence to news sources shared by social media contacts.
• Remain voters were more likely (50%) to use social media regularly for news than leave voters (34%), and more likely to read a newspaper website (by 41% to 18%). Of those who got their news from social media, Facebook was used frequently by more leave voters than remainers (74% leave, 65% remain), while the opposite was true of Twitter (39% remain, 28% leave).
• Of the countries surveyed, Sweden was the least credulous of conspiracy theories, with 52% believing one or more of the theories polled by the researchers, as opposed to 85% for Hungary. In the US that figure was 64% and in France 76%.
• 15% of leave voters and 11% of remain voters in Britain believed that, regardless of who was officially in charge in government, the world was run by a secret global cabal of people who control events together.
• The most widespread conspiracy belief in the UK, shared by 44% of people, was that “even though we live in what’s called a democracy, a few people will always run things in this country anyway”.
• Mistrust of authority was high in the UK, with 77% of people trusting journalists “not much” or “not at all”; 76% distrusting British government ministers; and 74% distrusting company bosses.
• Friends and family, by contrast, were trusted by 87% and 89% of respondents respectively, potentially adding credence to news sources shared by social media contacts.
• Remain voters were more likely (50%) to use social media regularly for news than leave voters (34%), and more likely to read a newspaper website (by 41% to 18%). Of those who got their news from social media, Facebook was used frequently by more leave voters than remainers (74% leave, 65% remain), while the opposite was true of Twitter (39% remain, 28% leave).
• Of the countries surveyed, Sweden was the least credulous of conspiracy theories, with 52% believing one or more of the theories polled by the researchers, as opposed to 85% for Hungary. In the US that figure was 64% and in France 76%.
