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How Americans Navigated the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review

Pew Report – Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19, February 22, 2021. “Americans are divided – that much is obvious after a contentious presidential election and transition, and in the midst of a politicized pandemic that has prompted a wide range of reactions. But in addition to the familiar fault line of political partisanship, a look back at Pew Research Center’s American News Pathways project finds there have consistently been dramatic divides between different groups of Americans based on where people get their information about what is going on in the world. For example, Republicans who looked to former President Donald Trump for their news about the 2020 election or the coronavirus pandemic were more likely to believe false or unproven claims about these events. And while Americans widely agree that misinformation is a major problem, they do not see eye to eye about what actually constitutes misinformation. In many cases, one person’s truth is another’s fiction. From November 2019 through December 2020, the Pathways project explored how Americans’ news habits and attitudes related to what they heard, perceived and knew about the 2020 presidential election and COVID-19….Chapter 1 examines the evidence pointing to media “echo chambers” on the left and the right, and a new analysis of the Americans who consistently turned to these echo chambers over the course of the study. Chapter 2 analyzes Trump’s role as a source of news about the coronavirus outbreak and the presidential election. Chapter 3 explores Americans’ concern about and views of misinformation. Chapter 4 looks at how Americans who rely on social media for news stand apart. And Chapter 5 looks back on views of the COVID-19 outbreak and media coverage over time…”

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