The trust gap between journalists and audiences was identified in MeDeMAP research
Findings from MeDeMAP – Mapping Media for Future Democracies reveal a significant mismatch between journalists’ and audiences’ perceptions of news media in Portugal, as featured in a recent article in Expresso. The Portuguese case study was conducted by Lusófona University/CICANT researchers Nuno Cintra Torres, Tatiana Chervyakova, and Manuel José Damásio as part of the ten-country MeDeMAP project.
Interviews with media professionals and focus groups with citizens show that journalists view their work as rigorous, factual and essential to democracy. However, many citizens express distrust towards the media, criticise sensationalism, lament the decline of local journalism, and feel disconnected from political coverage.
The study also finds that open television remains the primary news source, while the internet is seen as fast but often unreliable, and newspapers play a secondary role. Economic pressures and changing consumption habits further challenge the relationship between media and the public, trends echoed across the other European countries participating in MeDeMAP.
Read the Expresso article (in Portuguese).