(11 December 2008 7:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Though readers and audiences trust information on online news to the same degree as information received through TV, they have poor opinion of blogs, ranking them the least trustworthy means of understanding the world, states the ‘Digital World, Digital Life’ study, conducted by global market insight group TNS.

Conducted in 16 countries, ‘Digital World, Digital Life’ examined the online behaviour and perspectives globally. Approximately 27,000 survey participants were asked to select news from 13 sources of information - online news, blogs, Wikipedia, company websites, trade website reviews, user forum reviews, product comparison sites, TV news, paid-for newspapers, free newspapers, company brochures, industry magazines and friends’ recommendations.

Respondents were then asked to rate the information sources on a scale of one (don’t trust at all) to 10 (trust completely).

On a global basis, four out of ten respondents (42 per cent) highly trusted recommendations from friends. However, a roughly equal number highly trusted TV news (41 per cent), online news (40 per cent) and newspapers (39 per cent). Blogs are perceived as inherently less credible, taking the lowest score with only one in ten of respondents (10 per cent) trusting this source. This is noticeably lower than even free newspapers (19 per cent) and company brochures (18 per cent). Other online sources fared well, such as product comparison websites (34 per cent) and expert reviews on trade websites (31 per cent).

According to the study, there were quite marked variations in the levels of trust for particular countries. Chinese respondents were the most trusting of all nations on all sources except for one. The exception in China was Wikipedia, with only around a quarter (26 per cent) of Chinese respondents seeing Wikipedia as trustworthy. This was in contrast to respondents in Germany, where just over half (52 per cent) said that they trusted the site. In Germany, Wikipedia scored the highest level of trust among all the 13 information sources identified in the survey.

Three countries – the US, France and Italy –claimed to trust online news more than news on television. In the US, the results were 38 per cent online vs 33 per cent TV news, while for France the figures were 28 per cent online vs 24 per cent TV news.

In Italy, around four of ten respondents (41 per cent) trusted online news and less than a quarter (24 per cent) trusted TV news. Scandinavians surveyed by TNS have the highest level of trust of all in respect to online news, with around half of all respondents in Finland (54 per cent), Sweden (50 per cent), Norway (48 per cent) and Denmark (48 per cent) trusting this medium.

Other highlights included inherent trust in TV news in Finland (78 per cent) and Sweden (59 per cent), while in the UK a strong distrust of traditional newspapers stood out with only 23 per cent saying they trust this information source, a much lower score than online news (40 per cent).

TNS Global Interactive managing director Arno Hummerston said: “It’s interesting to note how credible online news has become with respondents ranking this roughly equal to TV news or recommendations from friends. The move of traditional media into the online space has ensured that the trust traditional media have long enjoyed has spread across online-only sources too. But this is tempered by the lack of trust that surrounds blogs, with this online medium right at the bottom of the 13 information sources we identified. With no real accountability (save for an invitation to post comments), offline engagement or demonstrable credibility, the subjectivity of this online medium ensures a uniform low score in our survey for trustworthiness.”