Edelman Trust Barometer: India's trust in media goes up

The Edelman Trust Barometer 2013 shows an India that still trusts the four institutions that the survey covers: government, media, business and NGOs. You can view the whole findings here.

The online survey was conducted in 25 countries (with 31,000+ respondents), with 1,000 ‘general population respondents’ per country (Ages 18+) and an ‘oversample of informed publics’ (500 respondents in US and China & 200 in all other countries) in the age group of 25-64 who are College-educated, in top 25 percent of household income per age group in each country and who report significant media consumption and engagement in business news and public policy.

Despite Justice Katju’s scathing indictment of media, media is the institution that has shown the greatest increase in trust. Reuters

Despite Justice Katju’s scathing indictment of media, media is the institution that has shown the greatest increase in trust, with 70 percent of respondents saying that they trusted the media last year and 79 percent saying that they did so this year.

Globally, while distrust is growing, India remains a ‘truster’, the composite score of trust in institutions being found higher only in China and Singapore. However, the general population trusts the institutions more than the informed publics do.

What is stark this year is the gap between trust in business and trust in government. In India, 81 percent of the respondents trust business ‘to do the right thing’, while only 57 percent trust the government to do so.

Having said that, globally, India headquartered companies are about the least trusted by respondents. India headquartered companies that are trusted by only 34 percent of informed publics (only informed publics were asked for their opinions. Only Mexico comes off worse, with 31 per cent of respondents trusting Mexico headquartered companies.

Trust in NGOs in India has risen in the past year, with 69 percent trust NGOs in India compared with 67 percent last year.