Politics

Visualizing the Decline of Confidence in American Institutions

Published

4 years ago

October 1, 2019

Iman Ghosh

Every day, the public relies on a number of major institutions for services and safety. From banks and governments, to media and the military—these institutions play an important role in shaping life as we know it.

Yet, today’s interactive data visualization from Overflow Data shows that America’s confidence in institutions has drastically waned. The data relies on the General Social Survey (GSS) to provide a 40-year overview of how sentiment has changed with respect to 13 different institutions.

Select an institution from the drop-down menu below to see how confidence has changed over time

The Erosion of Confidence

Overall, confidence in most institutions has eroded. Americans find it especially hard to trust their government: the “great deal of confidence” metrics for Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch were low to begin with, and have declined further since 1975.

That said, the biggest overall drop belongs to the press, which saw 50% of surveyed Americans saying they have “hardly any confidence” in it in 2016. This is nearly a three-fold increase from 1975, when that number was just 19%. Of course, with the rise of fake news in more recent years, the erosion of confidence in media doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Here’s a look at the two extremes of sentiment regarding the studied institutions, showing how the opposite measures of “hardly any confidence” and a “great deal of confidence” have changed since 1975:

Institution	Confidence level	1975	2016	Change
🏦 Banks & Financial Institutions	Hardly any	10.9%	31.2%	+20.3 p.p.
	Great deal	32.3%	14.1%	-18.2 p.p.
🗳️ Congress	Hardly any	26.2%	52.6%	+26.4 p.p.
	Great deal	13.6%	5.9%	-7.7 p.p.
🏫 Education	Hardly any	13.0%	17.5%	+4.5 p.p.
	Great deal	31.5%	25.6%	-5.9 p.p.
🏛️ Executive Branch	Hardly any	29.7%	42.4%	+12.7 p.p.
	Great deal	13.4%	12.8%	-0.6 p.p.
🏬 Major Companies	Hardly any	22.9%	17.3%	-5.6 p.p.
	Great deal	20.5%	18.3%	-2.2 p.p.
🏥 Medicine	Hardly any	17.8%	13.4%	-4.4 p.p.
	Great deal	51.8%	50.6%	-1.2 p.p.
🎖️ Military	Hardly any	14.8%	7.6%	-7.2 p.p.
	Great deal	36.3%	53.4%	+17.1 p.p.
💪 Organized Labor	Hardly any	31.5%	22.6%	-8.9 p.p.
	Great deal	10.2%	13.9%	+3.7 p.p.
🙏 Religion	Hardly any	23.0%	26.4%	+3.4 p.p.
	Great deal	25.8%	20.0%	-5.8 p.p.
📰 Press	Hardly any	19.0%	50.0%	+31 p.p.
	Great deal	24.5%	7.6%	-16.9 p.p.
🥼 Scientific Community	Hardly any	7.4%	6.1%	-1.3 p.p.
	Great deal	41.7%	42.1%	+0.4 p.p.
📺 Television	Hardly any	23.4%	43.1%	+19.7 p.p.
	Great deal	18.4%	9.8%	-8.6 p.p.
⚖️ U.S. Supreme Court	Hardly any	19.2%	17.4%	-1.8 p.p.
	Great deal	31.8%	26.3%	-5.5 p.p.

Banks and financial institutions have also suffered a bad rep in the public eye. Their “great deal of confidence” metric has dropped sharply from 32.3% to 14.1% in four decades.

One major exception is the military, which emerges as the most trusted institution. Americans’ faith in the military has also shown the most improvement, with a 17.1 p.p increase in a “great deal of confidence” since 1975.

The Split Widens Further

While measuring public confidence in institutions can be subjective, it provides an understanding of where Americans want to see change and reform take place.

For more on how Americans perceive different institutions and the issues that affect them, see how the public is divided based on political affiliation.

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Politics

How Much Do Americans Trust the Media?

Media trust among Americans has reached its lowest point since Trump won the 2016 presidential election.

Published

1 hour ago

December 2, 2023

Bruno Venditti

How Much Do Americans Trust the Media?

Media trust among Americans has reached its lowest point in six years.

Gallup began its survey on media trust in 1972, repeating it in 1974 and 1976. After a long period, the public opinion firm restarted the polls in 1997 and has asked Americans about their confidence level in the mass media—newspapers, TV, and radio—almost every year since then.

The above graphic illustrates Gallup’s latest poll results, conducted in September 2023.

Americans’ Trust in Mass Media, 1972-2023

Americans’ confidence in the mass media has sharply declined over the last few decades.

Trust in the mass media	% Great deal/Fair amount	% Not very much	% None at all
1972	68	24	6
1974	69	21	8
1976	72	22	4
1997	53	31	15
1998	55	35	9
1999	55	34	11
2000	51	37	12
2001	53	33	14
2002	54	35	11
2003	54	35	11
2004	44	39	16
2005	50	37	12
2007	47	35	17
2008	43	35	21
2009	45	37	18
2010	43	36	21
2011	44	36	19
2012	40	39	21
2013	44	33	22
2014	40	36	24
2015	40	36	24
2016	32	41	27
2017	41	29	29
2018	45	30	24
2019	41	30	28
2020	40	27	33
2021	36	29	34
2022	34	28	38
2023	32	29	39

In 2016, the number of respondents trusting media outlets fell below the tally of those who didn’t trust the media at all. This is the first time that has happened in the poll’s history.

That year was marked by sharp criticism of the media from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In 2017, the use of the term ‘fake news’ rose by 365% on social media, and the term was named the word of the year by dictionary publisher Collins.

The Lack of Faith in Institutions and Social Media

Although there’s no single reason to explain the decline of trust in the traditional media, some studies point to potential drivers.

According to Michael Schudson, a sociologist and historian of the news media and a professor at the Columbia Journalism School, in the 1970s, faith in institutions like the White House or Congress began to decline, consequently impacting confidence in the media.

“That may have been a necessary corrective to a sense of complacency that had been creeping in—among the public and the news media—that allowed perhaps too much trust: we accepted President Eisenhower’s lies about the U-2 spy plane, President Kennedy’s lies about the ‘missile gap,’ President Johnson’s lies about the war in Vietnam, President Nixon’s lies about Watergate,”
Michael Schudson – Columbia Journalism School

More recently, the internet and social media have significantly changed how people consume media. The rise of platforms such as X/Twitter and Facebook have also disrupted the traditional media status quo.

Partisans’ Trust in Mass Media

Historically, Democrats have expressed more confidence in the media than Republicans.

Democrats’ trust, however, has fallen 12 points over the past year to 58%, compared with 11% among Republicans and 29% among independents.

How-Much-Do-Americans-Trust-the-Media

According to Gallup, Republicans’ low confidence in the media has little room to worsen, but Democrat confidence could still deteriorate and bring the overall national reading down further.

The poll also shows that young Democrats have less confidence in the media than older Democrats, while Republicans are less varied in their views by age group.