Who and why: a study of British distrust in the government and media during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a unique context for studying the spread of conspiratorial beliefs within the general population and their role in mediating compliance with government guidance. Here, we apply multivariate and machine learning methods to analyse data from tens of thousands of members of the British public at 6-monthly timepoints during the COVID-19 pandemic. We report that distrust and conspiratorial beliefs significantly predict non-compliant behaviours and covary with sociodemographic variables, being most prevalent for disadvantaged and minority groups. Free text analyses reveal that perceptions of corruption, cronyism, disputing lockdown motivations and the potential of COVID-19 being a lab-leaked bioweapon were common topics motivating non-compliance, with the prevalence and distribution of such beliefs evolving as the pandemic progressed. We propose that survey data could be analysed this way to identify current topics of distrust and map them to demographic variables, enabling the most relevant arguments to be tailored for each individual.

Factors Associated with Trust in Public Authorities Among Adults in Norway, United Kingdom, United States, and Australia Two Years after the COVID-19 Outbreak

“…The findings provide additional support to adhering to Idowu et al’s [ 2 ] recommendations regarding the social responsibility in the health sector during a global pandemic. Findings from this study also align with examinations of trust among British individuals during COVID-19 [ 14 ]. Balaet et al examined the relationship between feelings of trust, thoughts about COVID-19, and behaviors.…”

“…Trust is needed to incorporate self-efficacy in the most effective and efficient ways during any stressful situation [9,12]. People's trust in the medical advice and information received from the government about COVID-19 had an impact on the public's compliance with mandated lockdowns and safety recommendations [6,7,[13][14][15][16][17][18]. Without trust, the likelihood of individuals making independent decisions to adhere to safety recommendations, even during a health crisis, is reduced.…”

“…Researchers note that the U.S. and the U. K. had higher levels of infection and fatalities and citizens were more likely to report distrust in the responsiveness of public authorities to COVID-19 [7,14,19,24,26]. A focus on supporting the national economy and not the health and safety of citizens, along with perceived slow and disjointed responses at the federal and state or provincial levels to respond to the global pandemic, has been noted as a contributor to the lack of trust in public authorities [2,5,7,17,19,27].…”

An exploration of Canadian government officials’ COVID-19 messages and the public’s reaction using social media data

“…This ratio is quite low compared to emergent data from countries such as the United Kingdom where surveys showed 31% of the population did not trust the government to control the spread of the pandemic [53]. Balaet et al further showed that 22% of study participants believed there were "ulterior motives" behind the government's COVID-19 response, with minority populations also tending to show distrust towards the government [54]. For instance, our results are well aligned with a larger study that took place on Twitter, showing that Canada is one of the most trusted countries by its citizens in terms of COVID'19 management (score of 4.1 with 5 representing the highest scoring metric) [55].…”