Three out of four Spaniards believe that there should be external monitoring to ensure the quality of journalism on health issues
1/23/25
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has carried out a study which shows the desire among Spanish society to have mechanisms in place which ensure the veracity of the news they receive through the media on health issues. Moreover, it appears that this is a desire shared widely among the public, since neither age, gender nor social class is a determining factor in people’s responses.
“The problem is that this desire for external monitoring among the public conflicts with freedom of expression and the right to information - enshrined in Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution - which prohibits any act of censorship in journalistic activity,” explains Carlos Maciá-Barber, a member of the UC3M Department of Communication and author of the study.
However, the researcher says that there are intermediate solutions that could be based on co-regulation, i.e. the creation of supervisory bodies made up of journalists (associations, unions) and experts (jurists, sociologists, institutional representatives and citizens). This could mitigate the reservations that part of society has in relation to the media, especially when it comes to sensitive issues such as public health, since, according to other data obtained during the research, only 60% of the people who participated in the study said that they believed that journalism seeks the truth.
“It is clear that if journalists want to avoid external interference, they need to be extremely self-regulating and tell the truth with honesty and professional rigour; in a post-pandemic context, ensuring the accuracy of information is essential to protect not only the right to information, but also the right to health, two essential foundations of a democratic society,” says Carlos Maciá-Barber.
The study, based on 1,800 online interviews nationwide and recently published in Frontiers in Communication, also reflects the need for people to learn to combat disinformation and fake news from an early age, since our perception of information manipulation varies according to age. For example, the research reveals that adults feel more confident when it comes to recognising journalistic truth: “This is because media consumption is much higher among the adult population, who tend to have a relatively high level of education and feel able to distinguish between what is the truth and what is a lie,” explains the author of the research. “And precisely because of this self-perception of strength in the face of misinformation, adults are less likely to verify the news that reaches them through the media or social networks.”
In turn, the results show that young people are more aware of their vulnerability and, therefore, make more of an effort to check whether the information they receive is accurate or not. “The unwillingness of many adults to cross-check the messages they receive, especially on health issues, can represent a major risk. We thus need to be careful when it comes to consulting Dr. Google and Nurse Wikipedia. Hoaxes on social media can cost us our lives,” concludes Carlos Maciá-Barber.
Bibliographic reference: Maciá-Barber, C. (2024). The COVID-19 pandemic and journalistic ethics: Spanish citizens' demand for external control of health communication in the media. Frontiers in Communication. Sec. Media Governance and the Public Sphere Volume 9 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1518052
