User information processing mechanisms for news quality judgment conformity to professional standards: Comparing combinations of news content/formal cue processing

Abstract

It is more difficult to judge news quality on digital news platforms because editorial cues (such as size and placement of news articles that signal the quality of articles in the traditional news environment) are far less obvious. Without these editorial cues, how do users process news cues to judge news quality in conformity to professional standards? Relying on dual information processing literature, this study investigates five combinations of news content/formal cue processing to identify user information processing mechanisms for news quality judgment conformity to professional standards. A total of 88 news articles were evaluated by 3547 survey respondents and two professional editors. Based on the partial-least-squares structural equation modeling, we found that the joint functioning of content/formal cue processing better explains news quality judgment conformity than other combinations (such as the independent functioning of each cue processing and the biased functioning of content cue processing affected by formal cue processing). The large, negative effect of joint functioning suggests that the less the respondents relied on formal cues, the greater they achieved news quality judgment conformity as they elaborated more on content cues. Elaboration on a given article’s believability/depth as a content cue and heuristics regarding its number of quotes as a formal cue had greater impact on judgment conformity. These results imply how the elaborative and heuristic routes of news processing interact and in what ways news cues can be processed to identify quality news which is necessary for democratic decision making.