Media use in the infodemic – is it masked by political ideology?
Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic poses a huge public health challenge to governments, including the need to communicate preventive measures in a way that a large part of the population understands, accepts, and adheres to. Reaching young people is especially challenging. Previous research indicates that media information sources as well as political ideology might play an important role in the level of acceptance and adherence to such measures. We address the open question if there is a connection between political ideology, COVID-19 information behavior, and adherence with containment measures with data from the COVIDisc project. Methods: The COVIDisc project (SNF grant 196328), investigates how young people, aged 15-34 yrs., perceive the communication during the Coronavirus pandemic and what media they use to inform themselves. A random sample drawn by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) (N=3597, 1812 from Thurgau and Zürich and 1785 from Ticino) was invited to take part in an online survey in November/December 2020. Political ideology was assessed with an 11-point scale, in which the center corresponded to a neutral position and the numbers left and right of the center corresponded to increasing left or right ideology. Results: 893 participants were included in the analysis. The mean age is 22.8 (sd 5.8), 43% are from Zurich or Thurgau and 57% from Ticino, 56% are female and 82% were born and raised in Switzerland. 27.8% of respondents placed themselves at the center of the 11-point political ideology scale and 10.2% at the poles far left/far right (4-5 points from the center). Participants using news sources and official sources placed themselves more to the left on the ideology scale, while persons not using any sources at all placed themselves more to the right. The majority of young people reported to follow the COVID-19 measures most of the time or always. First regression analyses indicate that the type of media sources used is not significantly associated with adherence to preventive measures, whereas this is the case for positioning far left/far right on the ideology scale when the interaction between far left/far right and trust in government is considered. Conclusions: Political ideology shapes young people's media use and therefore it is important to use diverse channels for COVID-19 communication. First analyses suggest that positioning far left/far right on the ideology scale is associated with less adherence to preventive measures.
