The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

316 The Network Society
Figure 13.3 How important is the Internet for Information
purposes
Percent of internet users with home access (%)
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
37.2
2.2
39.9
10.9
27.0
Less or much less time
More or much more time
7.5
26.4
3.1
Canada China Germany Portugal Singapore Spain Sweden USA
In the United States, faith in the integrity and reliability of traditional
print and broadcast media has been high over a period of generations.
Because Americans have trusted their media, they largely have
not developed the critical media skills necessary to readily distinguish
good information from bad or to withhold judgment until after examining
the source of the information. The results of the World Internet
Project’s worldwide data suggest that only people in countries where
faith in the reliability of information has not been so traditionally high
may have developed more critical media skills.
The American data show that in the first two years of the project,
Internet users in the United States had growing faith in the quality of
the information they found online. In 2001 55% of American Internet
users said they trusted most or all of the information they found on the
web (here the term “web “ is used so as not to ask about chat rooms or
e-mail). In 2002 that 55% grew to 58% and then in 2003 it fell to 53%
and then fell again the next year to 50%. Attempting to understand this
phenomenon, later questions were asked to distinguish sources of information
such as traditional media on the web, government web sites and
19.1
13.4
41.1
0.9
21.1
0.3
38.3
2.3