Credibility Perception of TV News and Debate Shows Before and During Election Campaign

Abstract

Media credibility is known to be situational. When media report and debate major events of national importance, audiences’ credibility perceptions about the media are known undergo a change either in the positive or negative direction. Elections to legislative bodies are of great importance to democratic societies. And when the election schedule gets announced, news and debate programmes of television news channels become electioncentric. What credibility do the audience attach to these programmes? In an attempt to answer this question, the present study assessed the credibility of news and debate shows telecast by Malayalam news channels before and during election campaigns, and examined whether the credibility of news and debate shows telecast during election campaigns was independent of voters’ socio-demographic variables. The results showed that the news and debate shows telecast before the beginning of election campaign had a lower mean credibility as compared to a higher mean credibility during the campaign period. Further, the higher credibility attached to poll news and debate shows telecast during election campaigns was found to be independent of viewers’ gender, age, and economic status. But viewer’s educational attainment and occupation had a bearing on their credibility assessments. These results unfailingly indicate that media credibility is situational. That news and debate programmes telecast during the election campaign period by Malayalam news channels were perceived to be relatively more credible highlights the importance of such programmes during elections.