Political Information Behaviour and Dealing with Disinformation (March 2023)

The study on political information behaviour and dealing with disinformation was conducted by Infratest dimap on behalf of the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government. During the survey period from 02.03.2023 to 18.03.2023, the German-speaking population aged 14 and over was surveyed in 750 telephone interviews (CATI) and 755 online interviews (CAWI) on the following topics: interest in politics, being informed about political topics, media and information use, the credibility of information sources and their importance for forming one´s own opinion, and dealing with disinformation. The sample for the telephone survey was drawn from the ADM telephone sampling frame and takes into account landline and mobile numbers (dual frame sample). The sample for the web-based survey was drawn via stratified random sampling from an online access panel.<br>1. Political information behaviour: interest in politics; informedness about political issues; frequency of use of different media and information sources for information on political issues.

2. Role of social media for political information behaviour: use of social networks on the internet; frequency of use of various social networks (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon); followed news on political issues on the aforementioned social networks; use of messenger services on the smartphone; frequency of use of various messenger services (WhatsApp, Snapchat, Signal, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, other messenger services); followed news on political issues on the aforementioned messenger services.

3. Touchpoints with political information: frequency of everyday political communication on different occasions (at work, at school or university, in personal conversations with friends, in the family, when using social networks on the internet, in leisure time/hobbies); importance of different sources of information for forming one´s own political opinion (news and information from journalists, information on the internet from celebrities or ordinary people, speeches and contributions from politicians, opinions from family members, friends and acquaintances, information from the federal government).

4. Credibility of information sources: credibility of the aforementioned political information sources.

5. Communication of the federal government: perception and use of various information offers of the federal government (internet pages of the federal government, on the pages of the federal government in social media, in brochures or magazines of the federal government, on posters of the federal government, from interviews of government politicians on television, in newspapers or on the internet); satisfaction with the information offer of the federal government (overall rating); reasons for dissatisfaction with the information offer of the federal government (open).

6. Dealing with disinformation: own reaction to assumed fake news (I ignore the information, I look for other sources and media reports to verify the information, I ask others what they think, I try to find out whether the source of information can be trusted in principle).

7. Danger of disinformation: agreeing with statements on the subject of fake news (with the abundance of information, one no longer knows what to believe, I am worried that I myself could fall for false or misleading news, I fear that others will be influenced by false or misleading news); desire for more information on fake news from the following places: from the media, from the federal government, from bloggers who deal with it, from operators of social networks on the internet, from schools and universities, no information on this desired); personal contact with fake news via messenger services; sources of fake news via messenger services (relatives, family, friends, acquaintances, celebrities or influencers, unknown persons).

8. Satisfaction with democracy, party sympathy.

Demography: age; age groups; sex; household size; number of children in the household under 14; highest educational attainment; educational attainment sought; migrant background of respondent; migrant background of parents; net household income (classified); employment; internet use.

Additionally coded were: interview number; district; city size (political municipality size); weighting factor.