Partisan Media, Trust, and Media Literacy: Regression Analysis of Predictors of COVID-19 Knowledge

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic was a devastating public health event that spurred an influx of misinformation. The increase in questionable health content was aided by the speed and scale of digital and social media and certain news agencies’ and politicians’ active dissemination of misinformation about the virus. The popularity of certain COVID-19 myths created confusion about effective health protocols and impacted trust in the health care and government sectors deployed to manage the pandemic. Objective: This study explored how people’s information habits, their level of institutional trust, the news media outlets they consume and the technologies in which they access it, and their media literacy skills influenced their COVID-19 knowledge. Methods: We administered a web-based survey using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to assess US adults’ (n=1498) COVID-19 knowledge, media and news habits, media literacy skills, and trust in government and health-related institutions. The data were analyzed using a hierarchical linear regression to examine the association between trust, media literacy, news use, and COVID-19 knowledge. Results: The regression model of demographic variables, political affiliation, trust in institutions, media literacy, and the preference for watching Fox or CNN was statistically significant (R²=0.464; F_24,1434=51.653; P<.001; adjusted R²=0.455) in predicting COVID-19 knowledge scores. People who identified as politically conservative, watched Fox News, and reported lower levels of institutional trust and media literacy, scored lower on COVID-19 knowledge questions than those who identified as politically liberal, did not watch Fox News and reported higher levels of institutional trust and media literacy. Conclusions: This study suggests that the media outlets people turn to, their trust in institutions, and their perceived degree of agency to discern credible information can impact people’s knowledge of COVID-19, which has potential implications for managing communication in other public health events.