Socialists trust DN, distrust of Klassekampen on the right

Newspaper, distrust of Klassekampen fake newsNewspapers .Photo: pixabay.com

Socialist voters trust Dagens Næringsliv, Conservatives have ingrained distrust of Klassekampen

Socialist voters trust the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) , whereas Conservatives supporters have low confidence in Klassekampen. The distrust of Klassekampen has deep roots.

 

Findings from the Norwegian Citizens’ Panel (Norsk Medborgerpanel) survey reveal that party-political allegiance only to some extent affects people’s confidence in Norwegian media.

Random participants

840 of the 5,000 participants in the citizen panel survey were randomly elected, and asked what confidence they have in the NRK News (NRK Dagsrevyen), the TV2 News (TV2 Nyhetene), the newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Klassekampen.

It didn’t appear that what people voted in the 2013 national election has much co-relationship to whether they trust the NRK Dagsrevyen, the TV 2 news, Aftenposten or Dagens Næringsliv (DN) or not.

Distrust of Klassekampen

But when participants were asked if they trust the left-wing newspaper, Klassekampen (the Class struggle), Høyre (Conservatives) and Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party) voters were far more skeptical than others, and had virtually no confidence in the newspaper.

The researchers behind the survey told Klassekampen that they had expected to see the same effect for DN; that left-wing voters would have less confidence in the newspaper. But to their surprise, trust was stable regardless of political preference.

Seek confirmation

Postdoctoral Fellow, Eirik Knudsen, compared the conservative skepticism to Klassekampen with the ‘Fox News Effect’. Knudsen works for the Department of Information and Media Studies at the University of Bergen,

– People choose news that supports the opinions that they already hold, and tend to rely more on news sources that they agree with politically, he states.

Background Information

  • NRK, Norges Rikskringkasting, is a state run news caster, paid by everyone who owns a TV in Norway, curiously if your TV is still black and white you pay less. You do not yet have to pay if you own any other media device.
  • TV2 is the biggest commercial news caster in Norway, rivaling NRK on the quality of news.
  • Dagens Næringsliv is the primary ‘Pink’ newspaper in Norway, dealing primarily with Finance.
  • Klassekampen used to be an organ for the communists, after the fall of CCCP, it has moderated its bias somewhat, and calls itself a watchdog.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today