UK media is failing to report properly on devolved issues in Wales, leaving voters ill-informed about May’s Senedd elections, a report has found.

A Cardiff University study of more than 3,000 news items found repeated patterns in coverage across different broadcasters and platforms, including not signposting whether an issue was relevant to England or England and Wales only, widespread references to “the government” rather than “the UK government”, and the use of “you” and “your” in contexts that apply only to people living in England.

Prof Stephen Cushion, the lead researcher, said that news reporting that did not differentiate between the UK’s devolved governments neglected audiences’ constitutional needs.

“When you say ‘the government is building more houses, setting targets, changing the way people get doctors’ appointments’ – those are different systems and a lot of that is invisible in UK-wide news,” he said. “A good example is the junior [resident] doctors’ strikes, or a very popular TikTok explainer about V-levels, talking about ‘how your education is changing’.

“The survey accompanying the research found there is still a lot of confusion in Wales about which policy areas are devolved. Stuff being reported in England is seen by viewers as being at a UK level, and it impacts how people vote.”

Almost three-quarters (73%) of social media posts by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News did not clarify whether the story was relevant to England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, the study found, along with 57% of TV news items and 35% of online articles.

Media inaccuracy has contributed to widespread uncertainty in Wales about political issues, according to the report: 26 years since devolution began, one-third of respondents still did not know that health and education were devolved to the Welsh government.

Only 1% correctly identified whether Cardiff Bay or Westminster had responsibility for eight policy areas, and just 7% of people knew that May’s vote would be held under a new closed list system, according to the representative poll of 1,544 people, conducted by YouGov alongside Cardiff University’s news item analysis.

Similar polling in Scotland from 2021 revealed higher levels of understanding of devolved powers and decision-making than in Wales, which Cushion attributed to Scotland’s healthier media environment.

UK‑wide outlets remain the primary news source for many in Wales, the report found: 46% of respondents relied on UK news most often, compared with 10% who mainly relied on Wales-produced news.

This divided along political lines: 60% of Reform voters said they mostly used UK news sources, a higher proportion than those who voted for other parties. One-third of Plaid Cymru voters said they relied mainly on UK news, while 46% said they used UK and Wales-wide sources equally, and 18% relied mainly on Wales-specific sources.

Cushion said: “It could be the case that people are casting their vote on issues that affect England, because campaign events in England, and involving the Nigel Farage v Keir Starmer dynamic in particular, get more coverage … But if you live in Wales, these elections have nothing to do with that.

“There’s a huge communication issue here, and that matters for democratic accountability.”