Twice as many Britons got news about the 2024 election via TV than via social media

Social media fared much worse, with 7% of people describing it as trustworthy, 6% accurate and 30% useful. This was similar to the response to news received via word of mouth, which was said to be trustworthy by 7%, accurate by 5% and useful by 21%.

Newspapers (both print and online) were described as trustworthy by 28% of people, higher than other online news sources, which scored at 17%.

Avoiding election news: Probably working class, elderly and women disable coverage

Another study by Ofcom found that working-class people, older people and women were among the groups most likely to ignore the news during this summer’s UK general election.

Each group reported that they were less interested in news and current affairs during the 2024 campaign, compared to their general interest in news.

Of all 8,000 respondents, people reported similar levels of interest during the election as during a non-campaign period. Asked to rate their interest in news and current affairs from one to five, with one being “not at all interested” and five being “very interested,” 48% said they were interested in news and current affairs during the campaign and 50% said they were interested “in general.”

In contrast, 21% of all respondents indicated that they were not interested in news and current affairs in general, and 28% indicated that they were not interested in the elections specifically.

Among C2DE respondents (those working in skilled or unskilled manual occupations, for example), 28% said they were generally not interested in news and current affairs. During the elections, this percentage rose to 36%.

Among the over-50s, 19% said they were generally not interested in news, compared to 30% during the election. Among women, those figures were 23% and 32%, respectively.

According to Ofcom, the most commonly cited reasons for lack of interest were that people “felt like nothing would change”, cited by 51% of those who said they were not interested, and that “it brings their mood down” (44%).

A related finding found that 49% of Ofcom respondents felt that ‘people like me’ had no voice in society.

“Feelings of having no voice increased with age,” Ofcom said, “and people from C2DE households were also more likely than average to have this feeling.”

Younger people became more interested in the news during the UK general election

Young people were the age group that most often indicated that they were more interested in the election period. Of the respondents between the ages of 18 and 24, 39% indicated that they were interested in news in general and 58% indicated that they were specifically interested in the general election.

Conservatives and Reform UK voters were the most likely to say they were not interested in news during the election. Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green voters were more interested in news during the election than they were in general.

While 45% of people said they felt well-informed about news and current affairs in general, 43% of people said they felt well-informed about news during the election in particular. Another 11% said they were “not at all” informed about the election, more than the 7% who said they were not at all informed about news in general.

Just under half of respondents, 46%, agreed with the statement “it’s important to engage with lots of different news sources”, compared with 22% who agreed with the statement that it’s “better to stick to one news source you trust” instead. Ofcom said the latter view was more popular among C2DE households.

Ofcom also asked respondents about misinformation and found that 46% of adults were “confident” they could spot misinformation in the media, but 21% thought they could spot a deepfake.

Six in 10 people said they had seen claims they thought were false or misleading at least once in the previous week, which Ofcom said included “one in 10 who said they saw such information multiple times a day”. A relatively small percentage, 27%, said they had come across a deepfake in the previous week.