Over 82% of Ukrainians who left abroad take the most interest in the political developments in their Homeland.
It was announced by the analyst of the Civil network OPORA, Olha Snopok, at the Media center Ukraine-Ukrinform during the presentation of the survey findings on migration, media consumption, and public and political involvement of displaced Ukrainians.
“We can see quite a high interest to the developments in Ukraine among out citizens, both on national and local levels. At the same time, Ukrainian political developments provoke more interest – 82% of respondents focus on this on a regular basis. On the other hand, the life in their home places is not so much interesting for them. Nevertheless, the number is still high – 74%,” she said.
According to Snopok, mostly respondents are interested about the news related to the full-scale Russian invasion, social and economic developments in Ukraine, etc.
At the same time, respondents are less interested in the developments in their host countries. “Mostly, the respondents who take more interest in the developments in their host countries have left before February, 24, 2022, and have lived there for quite some time already,” the analyst explained.
According to her, the news websites are the key source of updates for 23% of Ukrainians abroad. “The majority, 74% of respondents, refer to Ukrainian news websites for updates. About 5% of respondents read various international websites or the websites of their host countries,” Snopok revealed.
She says that no Ukrainians abroad use any Russian news websites for information updates.
“In terms of content, the news websites of Ukrainians abroad are mostly interested in the news – 62% of respondents search for this type of content. About one third of them claim they read different op-eds, reports, investigations, etc.” Snopok said.
She added that most respondents receive the information from messengers and on social media. “50% of respondents abroad use messengers, 47% use social media. Family, friends, or acquaintances in Ukraine are referred to by 22% of respondents, and the same share are watching YouTube,” Snopok informed.
According to her, television is used for news updates by 8% of Ukrainians abroad. Among them, 63% watch the United News telethon, 13% watch the TV channels of the host country, 10% also watch other Ukrainian television channels. Russian channels are watched by 1% of respondents.
“Television, messengers, and news websites are used by over 60% of respondents specifically for news, whereas they rarely watch and read interviews, analytical articles, and other content, in addition to news,” OPORA representative said.
She clarified that on social media respondents read news and author’s channels on almost equal terms – 30% for each.
As to messengers, 89% of respondents receive news on Telegram, followed by Viber with 6%.
The most popular social platform among Ukrainians abroad is Facebook (it is viewed by 43% of respondents) and Instagram (22%). TikTok (7%) and Twitter (3%) are used the least. At the same time, 18% of respondents use some other social media for news updates.
Ukrainians abroad have the most trust in social media (85% of respondents), and news websites (77%). The least trusted sources are the television news and printed media – 36% and 22%, respectively.
Survey “Media Consumption and Public and Political Engagement of Ukrainian People Out of Country” was conducted according to the analytical developments and upon commission of the Civil network OPORA and covered Ukrainian respondents in 7 countries: the UK, Israel, Spain, Germany, USA, Hungary, and Czech Republic.
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