What is the goal of the Digital News Report Spain?
The goal of the Digital News Report project is to describe and analyze how information is consumed in a variety of countries. The research was carried out by YouGov through an online survey conducted in January 2025.
How many surveys are conducted in Spain and is it representative of the country?
In Spain, the survey was based on 2,014 panel surveys of people over 18 years of age, representative of a total population of 47 million people. The Internet penetration rate at the time of the survey was 93% of the total population.
More generally, online samples tend to underrepresent the news consumption habits of people who are older and with lower income levels, meaning that online use may be slightly overrepresented and traditional offline use underrepresented. However, Internet penetration in Spain is over 93% and, therefore, the differences between the online population and the national population will be small.
The use of a non-probability sampling approach means that it is not possible to calculate a conventional 'margin of error' for individual data points. However, differences of +/- 2 percentage points (pp) or less are very unlikely to be statistically significant and should be interpreted with a high Degree of caution. We generally do not consider differences of +/- 2pp as significant, and as a general rule, we do not refer to them in the text. The same applies to small changes over time.
Do the results reflect the actual behavior or attitudes of the respondents?
Surveys reflect people's stated behavior , which does not always reflect people's actual behavior due to biases and imperfect recall. They are useful for finding out people's opinions, but these are subjective and the aggregates reflect public opinion rather than objective reality. Even with relatively large sample sizes, it is not possible to meaningfully analyze many minority groups. Some of our survey-based results will not match industry data , which are often based on different methodologies.
How reliable are the responses on trust in the selected journalistic brands?
Trust is necessarily subjective and depends on individual perception, so it is important to note that it is not always a meaningful indicator of whether a media outlet is reliable, accurate, unbiased or of high quality. Brand trust scores are just one of the measures we analyze in the Digital News Report Spain. Each year we ask several additional questions about trust in news in general and in the news that the respondent consumes.
How representative is this survey in Spain? Who does it represent?
As in the other 47 countries participating in the project, the Digital News Report Spain survey is based on an online survey , but the methodology selects participants to be as representative as possible of national populations. Samples are constructed using representative age, gender and regional quotas in each country, and data are weighted according to targets derived from census or industry data . In addition, additional educational quotas were applied in all countries. In Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the United States and the United Kingdom we also applied political quotas based on the vote in the most recent national elections.
In general terms, online samples tend to underrepresent the information habits of older and less affluent people, which implies that the use of digital media tends to be overrepresented and the use of traditional media underrepresented.
What do brand confidence scores mean?
We asked each respondent to rate a set of popular brands (15 in each country) on how trustworthy they felt their news content was. We use a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means the brand is not at all trustworthy, 10 means it is completely trustworthy and 5 means it is neutral ("neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy"). There is also an option for those who do not know a brand, so only responses from sufficiently informed people are used.
As we explain in the report, even alongside the tables presenting the results by brand, the evaluation of whether a brand is trustworthy or not depends on the subjective judgment of the respondents, and the scores represent an aggregate of public opinion, not an objective assessment of its trustworthiness. We believe that everyone can - and is entitled to - form an opinion about whether or not they trust a brand, and we pose this question because the resulting data is important, even if it may be uncomfortable for some.
In presenting the results, we sum the percentage of respondents who give a score between 6 and 10 and classify it as trust. We also add those who score between 0 and 4 and categorize it as distrust. Below, we present the 15 brands in order of the percentage that generate trust, although we also show the levels of distrust.
For clarity, the question asked is:
To what extent do you consider news about the following brands to be reliable? Use the following scale, where 0 means "not at all reliable" and 10 means "totally reliable".
How are these data presented in the report?
We present the data in a stacked bar chart, from most to least trustworthy. We expressly warn that the ranking should not be considered a list of media credibility in Spain. When the difference between brands is around two percentage points or less, we cannot say with certainty that one brand is more trustworthy than another. In surveys with a sample of about 2,000 people, we usually need a difference of at least three points to be considered significant.
In addition, due to the limitation of the length of the questionnaire, we only asked about 15 of the most commonly used brands. It is very likely that there are brands with higher or lower confidence levels that are not included. Therefore, it cannot be concluded that any brand is the most or least trusted. Next to each graph we point out the following:
How do you choose the brands you are inquiring about?
The selection of brands is a strategic and non-exhaustive sample . In October 2024 we prepared the list of brands to be asked about in the following year's survey . To do so, we analyze the results of the main media consumption measurement systems in Spain (GFK, Estudio General de Medios, OJD, among others) as well as data from previous editions of the Digital News Report Spain, in order to identify the most used brands: in traditional and digital, national and local, generalist and specialized media, in radio, press and television and digital native media. We also tried to include generic mentions such as "local press" or "local television", recognizing their importance, although we cannot ask about each specific brand due to the length of the survey. As a general criterion, we exclude from the list those brands that in the previous report did not reach 3% or less of reach.
How is it possible that some of the most widely used brands have low levels of trust?
Our research sample that people use news brands for a variety of reasons beyond their political or public interest content, which typically influences trust ratings. Some popular media include entertainment or lifestyle content, which can increase usage. Other times, a brand is widely used because of its high level of recognition. Usage and trust are not necessarily correlated. We also find that brands with longer histories tend to generate more trust than those of more recent creation. It takes time to consolidate that reputation for trustworthiness in the public's perception.
How are the results contextualized to avoid misinterpretation of confidence levels?
Although these results may make some brands uncomfortable, the Reuters Institute and the authors of the Digital News Report Spain consider it important to provide comparative information, both over time and between countries. Trust is just one of the many variables we monitor, along with consumption of different sources, use of devices, social networks, etc. We maintain consistent measurement criteria each year so that the results can be interpreted in context.
A more complete description of the methodology, panel partners and a discussion of non-probability sampling techniques can be found on our website along with the full questionnaire at reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk.
