{"id":351541,"date":"2018-03-10T03:24:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T02:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=351541"},"modified":"2018-03-10T04:51:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-10T03:51:37","slug":"trust-china-remains-top-trust-u-s-plunges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/trust-china-remains-top-trust-u-s-plunges\/","title":{"rendered":"Trust in China Remains Top; Trust in U.S. Plunges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer<\/span><\/a> survey, which is the latest in the annual Edelman<\/span><\/a> series taken in 28 countries, shows that the people of China have the highest trust in their country\u2019s institutions, and that the people of U.S. recorded an all-time-record loss of trust as compared to the prior year: a stunning 37% loss of trust \u2014 that\u2019s comparing 2017\u2019s 52% of Americans trusting America\u2019s institutions, down to 43% of Americans trusting them, a 9% slide, which Edelman referred to by saying, \u201cTrust decline in the U.S. is the steepest ever measured.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

That 9% was the average loss for each one of the four institutions measured; and, so, Edelman\u2019s Technical Appendix explained: \u201cWe then added these changes together across the four institutions, yielding a value of -37. This shows that in the U.S., the four main institutions lost a combined 37 percentage points.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

For comparison this year, against that -37%, the second-biggest loss of trust was the -21% in Italy. Tied for the third-biggest and fourth-biggest loss were Brazil and South Africa, both at -17%. Tied for fifth-biggest and sixth-biggest loss were Colombia and India, both at -13%. However India still remained one of the four highest-trust nations, having been #1 in trust in the 2017 survey, down now to the #3 position this year. Last year, China was #3; so, China and India switched positions between 2017 and 2018. The -37% for America simply outclasses all those other declines; and so this trust-plunge in America is major news.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the very bottom of trust in institutions is Russia, which displays 36% trust in its institutions. Second-lowest is Japan, which displays 37% trust. The two lowest in 2017 were Russia, at 34% and Poland at 35%. Russia was at the very bottom both years because one of the four \u201cInstitutions\u201d is NGOs, and \u201cTrust in NGOs\u201d ranged worldwide in 2018 from a top of 71% in Mexico, down to a bottom of 25% in Russia, and this Russian bottom is a stunning 12 points below the second<\/i>-from-bottom, Germany, which is at 37%. By contrast, for example, \u201cTrust in Government\u201d was 44% in Russia, and is only 33% in the United States. Trust in Government is the highest in China: 84%. (That\u2019s the highest-trusted of the four Institutions there; the lowest of the four Institutions there is NGOs: 61%.) So: whereas the plunge across-the-board is record-shattering in U.S., the sheer lowness of trust in that one institution, NGOs, is (and has been) record-shattering in Russia, and perhaps these are the two main take-aways (or main findings) in this Edelman study.<\/span><\/p>\n

The four \u201cInstitutions\u201d surveyed are: NGOs, Business, Government, and Media. <\/span><\/p>\n

The page \u201cTrust Crash in U.S.\u201d shows that, in the \u201cGeneral Population,\u201d Americans\u2019 trust in NGOs plunged 9 points from 58% to 49%; trust in Business plunged 10 points; trust in Government plunged 14 points; and trust in Media plunged 5 points. However, amongst America\u2019s \u201cInformed Public,\u201d these figures are even drastically worse that that: down 22 points on NGOs, 20 points on Business, 30 points on Government, and 22 points on Media. Looking further into those figures: what has happened in the U.S. is that, whereas in 2017, America\u2019s Informed Public had enormously higher trust in each of these four Institutions than did the General Population, now the Informed Public (which in all<\/i> nations typically displays much higher trust than do the General Population) plunged down not only to below where the General Population\u2019s trust-level had been in 2017, but even to below that, and is now almost as low as is that of the General Population. That\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>a stunning plunge amongst the elite. So, Edelman\u2019s reports noted for \u201cInformed Public\u201d: \u201c23-point decrease: fell from 6th to last [28th] place,\u201d meaning that the average decline on the four Institutions was 23%.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore: \u201cU.S. Trust in Media Diverges Along Voting Lines\u201d so that whereas 27% of Republicans trust the Media, 61% of Democrats do. This is the biggest type of partisan divide shown.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment Most Broken in the U.S.”: Whereas only 4% of Americans consider NGOs \u201cbroken,\u201d and 7% consider Business \u201cbroken,\u201d and 21% consider Media \u201cbroken,\u201d 59% consider Government \u201cbroken.\u201d In China, these figures are: 24% consider NGOs \u201cbroken,\u201d 38% consider Business \u201cbroken,\u201d 12% consider Media \u201cbroken,\u201d and 10% consider Government \u201cbroken.\u201d Though Russians place NGOs in the sewer, Americans place NGOs on a pedestal. That says a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMedia Now Least Trusted Institution\u201d amongst all 28 surveyed nations. However, trust in the media is above 60% in three nations: China (71%), Indonesia (68%), and India (61%). 7 nations have less than a third of the population trusting their media: Turkey (30%), Australia (31%), Japan, Sweden and UK (32%), and France and Ireland (33%).<\/span><\/p>\n

Digging deeper into the \u201cMedia\u201d issue: there has been, amongst the 28 nations, a movement away from online news (called \u201cPlatforms\u201d by Edelman) toward traditional sources of news (called \u201cJournalism\u201d by Edelman): \u201cWhile Trust in Platforms Declines, Trust in Journalism Rebounds\u201d: trust in \u201cJournalism\u201d rose from 54% then, up to 59% now, and trust in \u201cPlatforms\u201d sank from 53% then, to 51% now. This supports the view that the global campaign by \u201cJournalism\u201d (print and broadcast media) attacking \u201cfake news\u201d as being a product of \u201cPlatforms\u201d (social media, search engines, and news aps) and not at all of themselves (such as the newspapers and TV that trumpeted \u201cSaddam\u2019s WMD\u201d etc. and yet still are trusted as if they hadn\u2019t been the ones spreading that pathologically fake \u2018news\u2019) has succeeded. In other words: \u2019news\u2019 that is print or broadcast and thus can\u2019t provide to its audience easy access to its sources being merely a click or two away, is more trusted than is online news, which can (and some of which sites actually do) provide such ability for the audience to check its allegations easily for themselves (merely by clicking onto a link). In other words: the public evidently don\u2019t want to be empowered to verify allegations, but instead want \u2019news\u2019 that they either can\u2019t verify for themselves or would need to physically do their own personal investigation (not just by means of a click online) in order to decide whether or not to trust the purported \u2019news\u2019. This shows that the billionaires, who control all of the traditional sources of \u2018news\u2019, will likely continue to control the \u2018news\u2019, perhaps even more in the future, than now. And it shows that the public, worldwide (at least in these 28 nations), want them to continue controlling the \u2018news\u2019. Independent online news-sites will thus likely be easy to crush. They aren\u2019t even being called \u201cJournalism,\u201d no matter how much better than such \u201cJournalism\u201d the best of them might actually happen to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrust in Platforms Decreased in 21 of 28 Countries\u201d and there was the \u201cSteepest decline in U.S.\u201d So: especially Americans are increasingly trusting and getting their \u2018news\u2019 from the Establishment (which generally crave every invasion that the government is considering).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUncertainty Over Real vs. Fake News\u201d: 63% worldwide agree with \u201cThe average person does not know how to tell good journalism from rumor or falsehoods.\u201d People are passive about that; they accept this personal incompetence that they attribute to themselves. The vast majority of people don\u2019t know that all \u2018news\u2019 media that don\u2019t require all reporters to link to any source that they\u2019re using that\u2019s online, should be distrusted and simply avoided, not relied upon (such as is increasingly being done). If there aren\u2019t links provided to all reasonably questionable allegations, and if no quotations are provided of titles or key allegations that can conveniently be web-searched to find and evaluate its source, then that \u2018news\u2019 medium can\u2019t reasonably be trusted \u2014 but it is instead trusted the most. Since there\u2019s more trust in the non-verifiable print and broadcast \u2018news\u2019 media than in the verifiable online ones that do provide clickable links to their online sources, most of the public are satisfied to trust media on the basis of sheer \u2018authority\u2019, not on the basis of the reader\u2019s open-mindedness and critical evaluation of every allegation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cVoices of Authority Regain Credibility\u201d: Out of 11 types of \u201cspokespersons\u201d cited in \u2018news\u2019 reports, what\u2019s most distrusted are \u201cA person like yourself\u201d (now rated \u201cat all-time low\u201d) and an \u201cEmployee.\u201d What\u2019s most trusted of all is a \u201cJournalist\u201d (presumably here print or broadcast) and what\u2019s second-most-trusted is a \u201cCEO\u201d \u2014 these two (the mega-corporates) are trusted considerably more than, for examples, a \u201cTechnical expert,\u201d or than an \u201cAcademic expert.\u201d So: the mega-corporates don\u2019t even need to cite their own selected and paid \u2018experts\u2019, and can just cut their costs, while retaining the loyalty of their (and even growing) following. That makes dictatorship so easy to do<\/span><\/a> \u2014 even while cutting costs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEmployers Trusted Around the World\u201d: this ranged from a low of 57% in Japan and South Korea, to highs of 90% in Indonesia, 86% in India, 83% in Colombia, and 82% in China. Obviously, CEOs are exceptionally high-status around the world. Employees, by contrast, are at or near the bottom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrust in Government\u201d is the highest in China (84%), UAE (77%), Indonesia (73%), India (70%), and Singapore (65%). It is the lowest in South Africa (14%), Brazil (18%), Colombia (24%), Poland (25%), Italy (27%), Mexico (28%), and France and U.S. (33%). Here is that complete list, from the top, all the way down to the bottom: 84% China, 77% UAE, 73% Indonesia, 70% India, 65% Singapore, 54% Netherlands, 51% Turkey, 46% Sweden, 46% Malaysia, 46% Hong Kong, 46% Canada, 45% South Korea, 44% Russia, 43% Germany, 41% Argentina, 37% Japan, 36% UK, 35% Ireland, 35% Australia, 34% Spain, 33% U.S., 33% France, 28% Mexico, 27% Italy, 25% Poland, 24% Colombia, 18% Brazil, 14% South Africa. Since UAE is the very opposite of being a \u201cdemocracy\u201d<\/span><\/a>, that cannot reasonably be considered to be possibly a rank-ordering of these nations according to the extent they\u2019re a democracy. However, it might possibly be a rank-ordering of the extent to which the public are satisfied with their government; and, so, the complete list is shown here on that factor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrust in Media\u201d national rankings are quite similar to the national rankings on \u201cTrust in Government,\u201d except that Turkey ranks at the very bottom, 28th on this, at only 30%, whereas Turkey ranks 7th (51%) on \u201cTrust in Government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrust in Business\u201d is topped by Indonesia (78%), India and China (74%), Mexico (70%), UAE (68%), Colombia (64%), and Netherlands (60%). At the bottom on this are Hong Kong and South Korea (36%), Ireland (40%), Russia (41%), and Japan (42%). Canada and U.S. are in the middle: respectively #14 (49%) and 15 (48%).<\/span><\/p>\n

“Trust Declines in Nine Country Brands\u201d (defined by \u201ccompany headquartered in”) and by far the most decline of all (6% down, from 55% to 50%) was for U.S. products and services. The most-trusted brands shown (all rated 65% to 68%) are #1 Canada (same as last year) Switzerland (down 1% from last year but still #2), and Sweden (down 3% from being tied last year with Canada). The most-distrusted brands shown were India and Mexico (32%), Brazil (34%), China (36%), South Korea (43%) and U.S. (50%). Consequently, for example, any corporation that moves from U.S. to Canada, would, as of now, rise from being a 50%-rated national brand to being a 68%-rated national brand. Of course, such a trick would be more effective for a relatively new corporation, not for one that has already become widely known to be a U.S. brand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPolarization of Trust\u201d contrasts the \u201c6 markets with extreme trust losses\u201d (which are topped by U.S.) versus the \u201c6 markets with extreme trust gains.\u201d The latter group are #1 China +27%, #2 UAE +24%, #3 South Korea +23%, #4 Sweden +20%, #5 Malaysia +19%, and #6 Poland +17%. Those latter 6 are becoming places where headquartering a corporation there is adding significantly to the brand-value of that corporation\u2019s products and services. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer survey, which is the latest in the annual Edelman series taken in 28 countries, shows that the people of China have the highest trust in their country\u2019s institutions, and that the people of U.S. recorded an all-time-record loss of trust as compared to the prior year: a stunning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":351542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[960,535,804,524,1092,755,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-351541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-global-news","11":"tag-politics-2","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-usa","15":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}