In Georgia, supporters of the government and opposition often express contrasting opinions about the independence and reliability of specific news outlets. Based on the CRRC/NDI December, 2017 survey findings, this blog post looks at whether people think or not that the Georgian media spreads disinformation, which groups tend to think so, and how this opinion differs by type of media. “Disinformation” was defined in the questionnaire as “false information which is spread deliberately with the purpose to mislead and deceive people,” and the questions about it were asked separately about TV stations, online media, and print media.
The majority of the population of the country (60%) agreed with the opinion that “Georgian TV stations often spread disinformation.” When asked about online media and print media, 51% and 43% agreed, respectively. Interestingly, 59% of those who named TV as their main source of information for politics and current events agreed with the opinion that Georgian TV stations often spread disinformation. The respective share was, however, much higher with online media (75%).
People living in the capital agreed with all three of these opinions more often than people living in the rest of the country. The same is true for people with tertiary education. People living in ethnic minority settlements, on the other hand, found it most difficult to answer these questions, with a majority responding “Don’t know” to all three questions.
Thus, opinions about different types of Georgian media spreading disinformation are reported rather unevenly by the population of different settlement types and by people with different levels of education. There seems to be a rather strong consensus, though, that Georgian TV stations often spread disinformation.
To have a closer look at CRRC/NDI survey results, visit our Online Data Analysis portal.
