The Canadian followers of social networks to inform

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QMI agency

Sunday, 14 January 2018 14:00

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Sunday, 14 January 2018 14:02

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The Canadians did not hesitate to turn to social networks for information, shows a large survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in the United States.

According to the organization, 42 % of Canadians have found their information on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the second-highest total of all the developed countries studied. What are the South Koreans who love the more these new platforms, with 57 % of them who visit them for information.

Moreover, four South Koreans on five browsing the web for information, whether on social media or on sites of more traditional information. In Canada, 59 % of citizens do the same.

The inhabitants of emerging countries such as Lebanon (52 %), Argentina (51 %) and Vietnam (48 %) are also major followers of social networks to inform, noted the research centre.

“Compared to the use of the internet for information, where the link between the national economy and the use of the internet is obvious, the use of social media is not strongly related to the wealth of the country”, one can read in the study.

Strong confidence index

Furthermore, Canadians are among the most confident in the world when it comes time to judge the quality of information disseminated by the media.

The survey respondents said that, according to them, the media covered many different positions on the political issues at stake (73 %), news on the governments and leaders (79 %) and significant events (82 %). Seventy-eight percent of Canadians were of the view that the media reports the news accurately.

Among the 38 countries assessed, only in Tanzania have shown a higher level of confidence and trust that Canadians in each of the four categories. Overall, residents of Germany, the netherlands, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan have also given a good note in their organs of the press.

For their part, only 56 % of Americans think that the media report accurately the news. This percentage drops to 47 % when the time comes to deal with many different points of view on policy issues.

This international study, made public last Thursday, was carried out using a series of telephone interviews or in person. In Canada, 1022 Canadians, 18 years and over participated in the survey between February 16 and march 3, 2017. The margin of error for the canadian data is 3.6 %.