A study on access to information in Venezuela by Equilibrium CenDE, a research center that analyzes social, economic, and political problems in Venezuela and throughout Latin America, reveals that 64 percent of the Venezuelan population believes that there are disinformation and news manipulation strategies.
By Dialogo Américas – Álvoro Algarra and Carolina Alcade
June 7, 2023
The research shows that 78 percent of those consulted consider that the Venezuelan regime is behind these strategies; 35 percent blame the Venezuelan opposition, and 29 percent blame China, Russia, and Cuba, foreign governments allied to the regime.
Some of the characteristics people considered to evaluate the reliability of a media and protect themselves from disinformation are support with evidence, impartiality, and trajectory, according to Verónica Medina, research coordinator of Equilibrium CenDE.
The study elaborated in December 2022 and in which 1,275 people participated, reveals that 76 percent of those consulted cannot mention the specific name of a media that generates trust; 61 percent “are not loyal to any particular media as to remember its name quickly” and 15 percent “do not trust any of them.”
Social networks gain ground
Medina says that traditional media have lost “weight” in recent years and highlights the “preponderance” of social networks, including Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok as information media.
“We see increasingly that media such as radio, television, press have lost space especially in the younger segments. The rise of networks makes it easier to access information; I can see there the news highlights, this has changed the pattern of news consumption quite a bit in recent years,” she said in mid-May when she presented the research.
Armando Hernández, a young man consulted by Voice of America in a street in eastern Caracas says that he practically does not get information through traditional media and prefers to turn to the internet.
“I tend to look for more information through social networks, mostly through the internet, it makes me more comfortable since I see several points of view. Mainly Twitter or sometimes YouTube,” he says.
Néstor Figueroa, another person randomly consulted, states that he still gets his information from the radio, but he also constantly uses social networks.
However, Ve sin Filtro, a program of the organization Venezuela Inteligente, dedicated to the technical monitoring and documentation of internet censorship and other threats to the exercise of human rights, has identified dozens of blocked information pages that can only be accessed through the use of tools such as VPN, which “limits” the exercise of human rights on the internet.
José Gregorio Yépez, director of the Contrapunto portal, believes that the study allows those who make up the media to identify new patterns of news consumption.
“What we are facing is the challenge of searching and redefining our communication strategies. When we see that people do not mention the media and mention social networks, it comes to my mind that people see the networks as a medium, but those who bring the news to the networks are the media. It does not discriminate it as a medium, but the platform ends up being the medium,” he says.
The research also highlights that people between 40 and 60 years old are the ones who consume news that “contrast with their way of thinking” and on average are the ones who “verify the veracity of the news they consume.” While people over 60 present “greater difficulties” in verifying and comparing sources.
It also stresses that “people with higher levels of education are more likely to use some method to check on the veracity of the news they consume.”
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