DURBAN, May 18 (ANA) – Businesses globally had risen to the top of society’s most trusted institution, replacing governments, the 21st edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer showed this week.
The report, based on an online survey of over 33 000 respondents spanning 28 countries and conducted from October 19 to November 18 last year, found that employers and businesses have become the most trusted source of information.
A majority of respondents also believed business leaders (56%), government leaders (57%) and journalists (59%) were purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they knew to be false.
Trust in news sources has hit record lows, with 59% of those surveyed saying news organisations were more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than with informing the public.
Social media is the most distrusted source of quality information, with only 39% of respondents believing information they see there.
“This is the era of information bankruptcy. We’ve been lied to by those in charge, and media sources are seen as politicised and biased. The result is a lack of quality information and increased divisiveness,” Edelman chief executive officer Richard Edelman said in a statement accompanying the report.
Fifty-three percent of respondents believe corporations need to fill the information void when the news media is absent.
Company chief executive officers have unwillingly taken on new demands, with eight in ten respondents wanting CEOs to speak out on important societal issues and over two-thirds demanding that they intervene when governments do not fix societal problems.
Sixty-six percent think CEOs should take the lead on change rather than waiting for the government to impose change on them, while 65% think they should hold themselves accountable to the public and not just to the board of directors or stockholders.
Events of the past year had reinforced business’s responsibility to lead on societal issues, Edelman said, alluding to the Covid-19 global pandemic.
“It has also led to new expectations of business expanding its remit into unfamiliar areas, such as providing and safeguarding information,” he added.
With a decline of trust in society and despite a third wave of Covid-19 infections hitting South Africa, the report showed a measure of hesitancy among the public to get vaccinated.
Forty-nine percent of respondents from South Africa were willing to be inoculated, but only 21% wanted this as soon as possible while 28% preferred to wait six months to a year.
Globally, 64% of respondents were willing to vaccinate, with one in three people wanting to do so as soon as possible.
The report said “poor information hygiene” was a major threat to society’s recovery, post Covid-19. Information hygiene refers to news engagement, avoiding information echo chambers, verifying information and not amplifying unvetted information.
Seventy percent of respondents with good information hygiene said they would take the vaccine within a year, while 59% of those with poor information hygiene said the same.
Fifty-six percent of South Africans with good information hygiene were willing to vaccinate within a year, while just 42% with poor information hygiene felt the same way.
– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa
