Topic-specific Information Behaviour on the COVID-19 Pandemic (April 2021)

The survey ´Topic-specific Information Behaviour on the Corona Pandemic´ conducted by the market and opinion research institute INFO GmbH on behalf of the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government examines the attitudes of the population towards the COVID-19 pandemic, their information behaviour and their handling of the topic as well as the assessment of the reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic. The current survey wave in April 2021 thus builds on a first survey on the topic in November 2020.<br>Political interest; political informativeness; general attitude towards politics in Germany (satisfaction with politics, influence on politics, attitude towards parties and politicians, understanding of politics); frequency of use of certain media for political information (e.g. public television, private television programmes, printed newspapers, news in social networks, etc.); use of various information offers of the federal government; assessment of the credibility of the information of the federal government on political topics; topic that currently arouses the most interest (open); currently most annoying topic; used to be more interested in this annoying topic; interest in the topic Corona; annoyed by the topic Corona pandemic; most annoying in connection with Corona; informedness about the Corona pandemic; personal handling of the topic Corona pandemic (information behaviour, e.g. complete reading of articles about Corona, conversations about the topic, arguments about Corona, etc.); assessment of reporting on the topic of the Corona pandemic; behaviour in social media on the topic of Corona (own opinion expressed, other opinions on the topic read, no opinions on the topic yet read in social media); attitude towards public discussion in social media on Corona; comparison of one´s own view regarding the Corona pandemic with the views of the environment in social networks and of family and friends; credibility of the information provided by the federal government on the Corona pandemic; satisfaction with the way the federal government provides information on the following aspects of the Corona pandemic: Corona measures such as e.g. contact restrictions, Corona vaccinations, Corona financial aid, Corona testing; reasons for dissatisfaction with the information provided by the federal government on individual aspects of the Corona pandemic; assessment of current policy measures against Corona (appropriate, go too far, do not go far enough).

Demography: age (year of birth, average age and grouped); sex; education; occupation, type of degree; household size; number of persons in household under 16; federal state; Berlin West/East; place of residence West/East; city size; party sympathies; former non-German citizenship of respondent and parents (migration background); net household income (grouped).

Additionally coded were: Respondent ID; coarse clustering not politically disaffected, politically disaffected); clustering annoyed by Corona pandemic issue; weight; Nielsen areas.