New research from UF’s Brechner Project and Center for Public Interest Communications examines public attitudes, institutional trust, and what happens when FOI restrictions become personal
Americans strongly support the right to access government information. Most have never tried to use it — and don’t know much about how.
Those are among the headline findings from a new nationally representative survey released at Sunshine Fest 2026 in Washington, D.C. on March 16. The Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project and the Center for Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults on their beliefs, attitudes, and experiences with freedom of information.
These are pre-publication findings from a year-long message design and testing initiative. A peer-reviewed version is in development.
Key findings
Strong support, limited engagement. 90.6% of respondents said they support access to public information. At the same time, 91.9% have never filed an FOI request, and four out of five have never visited a website related to freedom of information. Only 5.9% said they know a lot about FOI or consider themselves experts.
Shared values across political lines. When participants rated a list of descriptors on how well each described the function of freedom of information, “right to know” scored highest across liberal, moderate, and conservative respondents alike.
Political ideology shaped emphasis, not core support. Liberal-leaning respondents more often connected FOI to functioning democracy and protection against authoritarianism. Conservative-leaning respondents more often framed it as defense against government censorship and bias, and linked truth to information they believe is hidden by those in power. Both framings reach for rights and accountability — a foundation the field can build on.
Nonprofits are the most trusted actors. The survey measured trust in entities that provide and request government information across three dimensions: competence, benevolence, and integrity. Nonprofits ranked highest across all three in both categories. Trust in government rose with proximity — local government fared better than state, and federal government received the lowest integrity ratings of any entity measured. Journalists showed the greatest variance of any group, with liberal-leaning respondents reporting significantly higher trust than conservative-leaning respondents.
What happens when FOI restrictions become personal. The survey included an experiment in the section on restricting public records access. Participants were first asked how much they supported common justifications for limiting that access — protecting employee privacy, preventing harassment, shielding security-related information. Then a follow-up question named the personal implication of each restriction.
Support dropped in every scenario. The biggest shifts came in the harassment and privacy scenarios — participants became less supportive once they understood those restrictions could also prevent them from contacting elected officials or verifying whether public servants live where they claim. Security and secret-record scenarios showed the smallest shifts.
Age and education predict support for transparency. Older respondents showed higher support across all four dimensions of government transparency measured — fiscal, safety, principled, and good-government. Education predicted support in three of the four. These patterns broadly align with prior research on citizen attitudes toward government transparency (Piotrowski & Van Ryzin, 2007), with some differences in gender patterns the team will examine further.
About the project
This survey is phase one of a multi-stage effort to develop evidence-based message recommendations for the freedom of information field. Subsequent phases include a message-testing experiment and a practical strategy guide for advocates, journalists, and policymakers.