News interests and quality: Preferences and audience perception in Spain
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4185/rlcs-2025-2374Keywords:
journalistic quality, information consumption, news interest, politicization, ideology, media, survey, partisan media bias, selective exposureAbstract
Introduction: The aim of this article is to analyze the information preferences of the Spanish population, the media they trust and their perceptions of journalistic quality. Methodology: A quantitative approach based on the survey technique is used for the purpose of this study. The online questionnaire was completed by 1,200 people aged over 16 from all over Spain between March 8 and 15, 2023. The sample was distributed proportionally by autonomous community, gender, age and population size. Results: Spanish citizens consider themselves to have a high level of information and interest in national current affairs and highly relevant issues such as health (46.1%), economy (38%) and politics (33.9%). Respondents see politicization as the main media problem and journalistic quality as low or very low (63%). Among the measures that could improve quality, they identify better contextualization, greater diversity of opinion, more relevant topics and more varied information. They identify television as the medium that provides the highest quality of information and the most contrasting news. Discussion and conclusions: This article focuses on the weight that self-ideology has on the perception of the media and its ideological positioning, as well as on the perception that Spaniards have of the quality of journalism in the Spanish media.
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