The Role of Trust and Attitudes toward Democracy in the Dissemination of Disinformation—a Comparative Analysis of Six Democracies

Figures & data

Table 1. Sample Description.

	Belgium	France	Germany	Switzerland	United Kingdom	United States	Source
Population	11.6 m	65.5 m	82.4m	8.6m	67.0 m	331m	Digital News Report Newman et al. (2022)
Internet penetration	94%	92%	96%	94%	95%	90%	Digital News Report Newman et al. (2022)
Political organizations	Party centered	Candidate centered	Party centered	Party centered	Party centered	Candidate centered	Lijphart (2012)
Mass media system	Democratic-corporatist	Polarized-pluralist	Democratic-corporatist	Democratic-corporatist	Liberal	Liberal	Hallin and Mancini (2004)
Trust in news media	51%	29%	50%	46%	34%	26%	Digital News Report Newman et al. (2022)
Trust in government	32%	31%	43%	69%	30%	32%	Brezzi et al. (2021)
Prevalence of populist communication (index)	1.06	0.02	0.60	−0.29	0.72	−1.20	Humprecht, Esser, and Van Aelst (2020)*
Polarization of society (index)	1.12	−0.89	1.81	−0.32	−0.43	−0.58	Coppedge et al. (2022)*
Share of PBS and public revenue (index)	−0.42	−0.02	1.37	0.44	0.89	−2.80	Brüggemann et al. (2014)

Note: *Higher values indicate lower polarization/populist communication and vice versa.

Table 2. Country Means of Main Dependent and Independent Variables.

	Belgium		France		Germany		Switzerland		United Kingdom		United States
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	F
Disinformation index	2.39^c	1.44	2.39^c	1.43c	2.18^b	1.47	1.89^a	1.22	2.17^b	1.41	2.75^d	1.67	F(5,7000) = 42.433, p < .001
General trust in news media	4.59^d	1.40	3.80^a	1.43	4.50^d	1.56	4.30^c	1.45	4.20^bc	1.52	4.07^b	1.68	F(5,6999) = 42.555, p < .001
Trust in self-used news	4.86^c	1.30	4.00^a	1.43	4.89^c	1.45	4.75^c	1.36	4.53^b	1.44	4.49^b	1.57	F(5,6998) = 64.064, p < .001
Trust in news in social media	3.28^bc	1.56	3.14^ab	1.48	3.37^c	1.60	3.21^bc	1.48	2.99^a	1.58	3.30^bc	1.73	F(5,6999) = 9.350, p < .001
Trust in journalists	4.25^c	1.45	3.59^d	1.57	4.21^c	1.53	4.00^b	1.45	3.35^a	1.55	3.95^b	1.71	F(5,7000) = 64.268, p < .001
Trust in politicians in government	3.24^b	1.62	2.72^a	1.63	3.79^d	1.71	4.07^e	1.53	3.46^c	1.64	3.12^b	1.61	F(5,7000) = 106.224, p < .001
Trust in politicians of the opposition	3.36^c	1.57	2.79^a	1.51	3.73^d	1.63	3.77^d	1.42	3.15^b	1.59	2.78^a	1.64	F(5,7000) = 90.353, p < .001
Satisfaction with democracy	3.87^a	1.65	3.77^a	1.73	4.56^c	1.69	5.31^d	1.35	4.60^c	1.46	4.35^b	1.58	F(5,6999) = 154.121, p < .001
Importance of democracy	5.52^ab	1.50	5.36^a	1.64	6.08^d	1.34	6.23^d	1.15	5.85^c	1.31	5.55^b		F(5,7000) = 71.338, p < .001
N		1063		1255		1019		1251		1380		1037	7005

Note: Univariate ANOVA at the national level. Means with the same superscript letter within a row are not statistically significantly different (based on post hoc Bonferroni’s test, p = .05).

Table 3. Trust and Attitudes Predicting the Willingness to Spread Disinformation (Like, Share, or Comment).

	Belgium		France		Germany		Switzerland		United Kingdom		United States
	SE (B)	Beta	SE (B)	Beta	SE (B)	Beta	SE (B)	Beta	SE (B)	Beta	SE (B)	Beta
Constant	.21		.17		.24		.21		.18		.22
General news trust	.04	−.10*	.05	−.04	.05	−.03	.04	.03	.04	−.04	.05	−.02
Trust in news used	.05	−.003	.05	.07	.05	−.07	.04	−.02	.04	−.15	.04	.03
Trust in news on social media	.03	.41***	.03	.24***	.03	.37***	.03	.26***	.03	.46***	.32	.32***
Trust in journalists	.04	.07	.03	−.06	.04	.01	.03	.01	.03	.06	.04	−.09
Trust in government politicians	.04	−.04	.04	−.11*	.05	−.02	.04	−.10*	.03	.17***	.04	.17***
Trust in opposition politicians	.04	.12**	.04	.16***	.05	.10	.04	.07	.03	−.07*	.04	.11
Satisfaction with democracy	.03	−.08*	.03	−.06	.04	−.14***	.03	−.10**	.03	−.02	.03	.11***
Importance of democracy	.03	.04	.03	−.06*	.04	.00	.03	−.11***	.03	.01	.03	.03
Adjusted R^2		.18		.09		.14		.11		.20		.24

Note: N = 7006. OLS regression models at country level. The cells include robust standard errors (clustered on respondents) and betas. *p < .05; **p < .01; and ***p < .001.

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