Both within journalism and academia it is argued that citizen voices should have a greater prominence in news to counterbalance the virtual monopoly of elite sources. This study extends previous studies – showing increased presence of citizens in news – by investigating relevant but unanswered questions, namely, (1) whether there has been a change in their prominence relative to elite and civil society sources and (2) in which capacity citizens have been present in the past two-and-a-half decades. Moreover, (3) citizens’ contribution to different story topics is explored. In this study, 1425 television news stories broadcast between 1990 and 2014 ( N = 2413 sources) are analyzed. Results show that citizen sources became more prominent at the cost of elite sources. However, elite sources still remain the primary definers in news. Citizens do not get a more substantive, relevant voice as they are primarily used as vox pops, regardless of story topic.

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Background The COVID-19 infodemic, a surge of information and misinformation, has sparked worry about the public’s perception of the coronavirus pandemic. Excessive information and misinformation can lead to belief in false information as well as reduce the accurate interpretation of true information. Such incorrect beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic might lead to behavior that puts people at risk of both contracting and spreading the virus. Objective The objective of this study was two-fold. First, we attempted to gain insight into public beliefs about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 in one of the worst hit countries: the United States. Second, we aimed to test whether a short intervention could improve people’s belief accuracy by empowering them to consider scientific consensus when evaluating claims related to the pandemic. Methods We conducted a 4-week longitudinal study among US citizens, starting on April 27, 2020, just after daily COVID-19 deaths in the United States had peaked. Each week, we measured participants’ belief accuracy related to the coronavirus and COVID-19 by asking them to indicate to what extent they believed a number of true and false statements (split 50/50). Furthermore, each new survey wave included both the original statements and four new statements: two false and two true statements. Half of the participants were exposed to an intervention aimed at increasing belief accuracy. The intervention consisted of a short infographic that set out three steps to verify information by searching for and verifying a scientific consensus. Results A total of 1202 US citizens, balanced regarding age, gender, and ethnicity to approximate the US general public, completed the baseline (T0) wave survey. Retention rate for the follow-up waves— first follow-up wave (T1), second follow-up wave (T2), and final wave (T3)—was high (≥85%). Mean scores of belief accuracy were high for all waves, with scores reflecting low belief in false statements and high belief in true statements; the belief accuracy scale ranged from –1, indicating completely inaccurate beliefs, to 1, indicating completely accurate beliefs (T0 mean 0.75, T1 mean 0.78, T2 mean 0.77, and T3 mean 0.75). Accurate beliefs were correlated with self-reported behavior aimed at preventing the coronavirus from spreading (eg, social distancing) (r at all waves was between 0.26 and 0.29 and all P values were less than .001) and were associated with trust in scientists (ie, higher trust was associated with more accurate beliefs), political orientation (ie, liberal, Democratic participants held more accurate beliefs than conservative, Republican participants), and the primary news source (ie, participants reporting CNN or Fox News as the main news source held less accurate beliefs than others). The intervention did not significantly improve belief accuracy. Conclusions The supposed infodemic was not reflected in US citizens’ beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic. Most people were quite able to figure out the facts in these relatively early days of the crisis, calling into question the prevalence of misinformation and the public’s susceptibility to misinformation.

Scientific-consensus communication is among the most promising interventions to minimize the gap between experts’ and the public’s belief in scientific facts. There is, however, discussion about its effectiveness in changing consensus perceptions and beliefs about contested science topics. This preregistered meta-analysis assessed the effects of communicating the existence of scientific consensus on perceived scientific consensus and belief in scientific facts. Combining 43 experiments about climate change, genetically modified food, and vaccination, we found that a single exposure to consensus messaging had a positive effect on perceived scientific consensus ( g = 0.55) and on belief in scientific facts ( g = 0.12). Consensus communication yielded very similar effects for climate change and genetically modified food, whereas the low number of experiments about vaccination prevented conclusions regarding this topic. Although these effects are small, communicating scientific consensus appears to be an effective way to change factual beliefs about contested science topics.