Trust In News Media Research Articles

Why they don’t trust the media: The Chinese public’s perception and evaluation of news media in the social media era, taking the Liu Xuezhou incident as an example

With the advent of the post-pandemic era characterised by increasing social uncertainty, the public is placing higher demands on the trust in news media. According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, the image of the media in the public’s mind is deteriorating. Why don’t they trust the media? What are the reasons given by the public when the media is denounced as unscrupulous? Taking the Liu Xuezhou incident as a typical case, the study extracts key elements from 5,225 related microblog texts, identifies the main topics of public discussion with the help of LDA topic modelling, clarifies the referential dimension of unscrupulous media with the help of pointwise mutual information, and analyzes netizens’ evaluations related to different referential levels of the media through visual semantic networks, which can help formulate dialectical thinking on media trust in the context of China in the era of social media.

Towards a processual understanding of trust: A study of trust-building strategies of constructive journalists

Trust in news media is a hot topic in media research, and although several attempts have been made to explore it, the concept has commonly been viewed as a matter of audiences’ reception of news products. In contrast, we conceptualize trust as an integral part of all stages of the news production process and focus on the journalists’ perspective. Based on semi-structured interviews with Austrian constructive journalists, we investigate which strategies they use to improve the perception of their trustworthiness among audiences and what they want to achieve by being trusted. Trust-building strategies are identified across various stages of news production, with a notable emphasis on traditional journalistic values like objectivity, particularly in the context of separating facts from opinions to enhance audiences’ trust. Objectivity is sought through reliance on scientific sources, which are considered objective in their own right. This approach contrasts with conventional notions of objectivity in journalistic and academic discourse on constructive journalism. The findings reveal a focus on fostering trust to promote a solution-oriented approach to public issues, facilitating a more vibrant and constructive public discourse.

The Social Media Comment Section as an Unruly Public Arena: How Comment Reading Erodes Trust in News Media

The comment section accompanying news stories on social media offers an important interactive context for news, but may also afford the possibility to spread anti-establishment, trust-eroding comments. Exposure to such comments may affect social media users’ trust in news media. However, evidence of over-time effects is scarce. This study draws upon cultivation theory and uses a three-wave panel survey in the Netherlands ( N = 906). Findings indicate that increased comment reading at T2 exacerbates and deepens news media mistrust at T3, suggesting that exposure to the comment section accompanying news stories posted on social media indeed has negative ramifications for news media trust. News media seem to be closing off their own comment section and delegating commenting to social media in part to create a buffer between themselves and trust-eroding comments. Our findings suggest this buffer is not as solid as news media might hope.

Trust in news media: the naïve perception of the causes is dominated by the…

Trust in news media: the naïve perception of the causes is dominated by the…

Building Trust in AI-Human Partnerships: Exploring Preferences and Influences in the Manufacturing Industry

Abstract The incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into industrial processes has seen substantial development, characterized by the shift from Industry 4.0 to the future concept of Industry 5.0. The article identifies a significant gap in knowledge regarding how openness in AI engagement influences consumer trust and confidence in news media. This gap highlights the need for further exploration into the relationship between transparency in AI processes and consumer perceptions. The research utilises a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, gathering insights from academic literature, industry viewpoints, and actual data. We conduct an extensive analysis of existing literature to investigate the process of incorporating artificial intelligence into news creation and its influence on the level of confidence consumers have in the news. We have identified a significant lack of knowledge about the impact of openness in AI engagement on consumer views and trust in news media. Expanding on this discrepancy, we suggest a systematic methodology that incorporates controlled experiments and surveys to evaluate the influence of different degrees of openness on consumer trust and involvement with AI-generated news content. In addition, the paper examines the difficulties in establishing confidence in artificial intelligence (AI) inside the European Union, including several aspects such as technological, ethical, social, and legal considerations. The document presents a thorough plan to guarantee the secure development and execution of AI, with a focus on the significance of transparency, ethics, and teamwork. The study’s results provide vital insights for politicians, news organisations, and industrial businesses as they navigate the intricate process of integrating AI. Comprehensive Plan for Secure AI Development, to address the challenges outlined, the article presents a thorough plan for ensuring the secure development and execution of AI within the European Union. This plan emphasizes the significance of transparency, ethics, and collaboration in building trust and confidence in AI technologies.

The Reciprocal Effects of Perceived Accuracy and Trust in News Media: A Two-Wave Online Panel Study in the Context of the 2021 German Federal Election

Trust in the news media is an important prerequisite for democracies. Building on media trust and accuracy research, we investigate reciprocal effects between perceived accuracy and trust in news. We implemented a two-wave online panel survey ( N = 952) in the context of the 2021 German federal election. For media individuals' use, we find that trust and accuracy are reciprocally related and are influenced by media use. For the media in general, only trust has an effect on accuracy, whereas media skepticism and cynicism are only associated with trust, not with accuracy. Further results and their implications are discussed.

In Peace Journalism we Trust? Effects of Peace Journalism on News-item Credibility and Media Trust

ABSTRACT Responding to criticisms that conflict reporting is at times overly sensational with negative impacts on individuals, peace journalism aims to shift journalistic attention from episodic, event-based reports to coverage highlighting structural causes of conflict as well as its peaceful transformation. However, little is known about how audiences perceive such reports, particularly when it comes to perceptions of credibility or trust. Using an experiment in the U.S. context, this study examines the effects of exposure to peace journalism on individuals’ perceptions of news-item credibility and trust in news media generally. Results show that peace-journalism framing may have short-term positive effects on individuals’ perceptions of a news article’s credibility, but general media trust is primarily driven by political ideology. Implications for journalism theory and practice are discussed.

Confusing Content, Platforms, and Data: Young Adults and Trust in News Media

News media trust, and the lack thereof, has been a prominent topic of discussion among journalism scholars in recent years. In this article, we study young adults’ trust in news media from the perspectives of platformisation and datafication. For the empirical study, we collected interview data from 23 Finnish 19–25-year-old young adults and analysed it inductively with applied thematic analysis. Our analysis reveals that trust negotiation is relational and entails not accepted, but forced vulnerability in relation to news media and the platforms on which they operate. Unclarity about the agency of news media on social media platforms causes young adults to experience powerlessness and anxiety in the face of data collection, which in practice translates into indifference toward their data being used by both news media and social media platforms. We show that young adults face a variety of challenges when navigating the online (news) media environment, which as we identify, can result in three trust-diminishing confusions about content, platforms, and data. This may have profound effects on how journalism is viewed as a cornerstone of a democratic society.

Improving media trust research through better measurement: An item response theory perspective

While trust in news media has come to the forefront of scholarly and public debate in recent years, academic researchers have raised persistent concern that measurement issues have prevented a better understanding of the concept. This research introduces an item response theory (IRT) perspective to advance the state-of-the-art in media trust measurement beyond recent conceptual and analytical progress. I argue that standard survey instruments that concentrate on the perceived believability of news media restrict our capability to measure truly low media trust. Furthermore, I suggest an important yet previously unnoticed pathway to overcoming this restriction in a scale by Abdulla et al. that captures currency perceptions alongside believability perceptions. Using a representative survey conducted in Germany, I find robust empirical evidence that capturing currency vs. believability perceptions significantly impacts our ability to accurately measure lower vs. higher levels of media trust. The findings have implications for not only studies of media trust’s associations with antecedent and consequential constructs but any attempt to determine the true amount and divergence of citizens’ media trust. More generally, the results demonstrate how IRT aids in putting scholarly debates on the dimensionality and interplay of trust with distrust on more common and fruitful grounds.

The Role of Trust and Attitudes toward Democracy in the Dissemination of Disinformation—a Comparative Analysis of Six Democracies

Trust lies at the heart of the disinformation crisis, as citizens must decide which narratives to follow and whether to accept “alternative truths.” Therefore, trust in institutions that publish reliable information can act as a shield against disinformation. This comparative study investigates the role of trust in news media and political actors and general attitudes toward democracy in the willingness to spread disinformation (i.e., likes, shares, or comments). Findings of this study show that news media trust plays a subordinate role but that trust in social media news has a strong relationship with willingness to spread disinformation. In 2020, citizens in the United States and United Kingdom who had high trust in their governments were more willing to spread disinformation, whereas in France and Belgium, citizens who trusted opposition leaders were more likely to do so. Moreover, citizens who were satisfied with democracy appeared to be less vulnerable to disinformation, with the exception of those in the United States. Therefore, political actors bear great responsibility for the current (dis)information crisis because they can exploit citizens’ trust to their advantage.

Impact of Sensationalized Media Coverage and Perception on Current Events in Myanmar

Purpose: The study sought to analyze the impacts of sensationalized media coverage and perception on current events in Myanmar
 Methodology: The study adopted a desktop methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library.
 Findings: The results show that showed that sensationalist television news tends to be more negatively evaluated than non-sensationalist news. In addition, critical views on arousing content appeared to be particularly visible among young and middle-aged adults. These findings suggest that the rise of sensationalist news could be an explanation of the declining trust in news media that is witnessed in a number of countries
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The media logic theory and the agenda setting theory may be used to anchor future studies in the information sector. The study results will also benefit other stakeholders such as the policy makers as well as researchers and scholars from different parts of the world. The top management of media companies industries in the country will also use the study findings to improve social media coverage performance in all their activities and programs. The study recommends that the adoption of effective social protection development policies in the media will help to improve efficiency in their major operations and activities.

Research on the Construction of Public Trust in News Media Related to the Epidemic in Social Media in the Post-epidemic Era

COVID-19 has caused enormous negative effects all over the world since the first confirmed case appeared in 2019. Social media has become an important way for people to get news about the epidemic due to convenience. However, rumors and fake news on social media destroy the trust of people. So how to improve the media trust and provide more useful information for people has become a great challenge for social media users. This paper will focus on the news post on Weibo in post-epidemic era, and discuss the factors that influence the media trust.

How Rally-Round-the-Flag Effects Shape Trust in the News Media: Evidence from Panel Waves before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis

ABSTRACT In this study, we extend the literature on the rally ‘round the flag phenomenon, that is, that international crises tend to cause an increase in citizens’ approval of political institutions. We advance this literature and highlight its relevance for political communication research in three ways: 1) by theorizing and empirically testing two arguments for why rally effects should extend to trust in the news media on the institutional level, 2) by providing empirical evidence on how rally effects on trust in the media develop over time during an international crisis, and 3) by theorizing and testing the conditions under which rally effects on media trust are more likely to occur by studying heterogeneous effects. Through a panel design with a pre-crisis baseline of Norwegian citizens’ trust in news media, we find evidence to suggest that the compound effect of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis caused a long-lasting increase in trust in the news media in Norway, and that the degree of increase varied by citizens’ education and whether they belonged to a “high-risk” group. We also provide evidence to suggest that rally effects on news media trust are contingent on how important the news media is as a source of information about the crisis and the “trust nexus” between media trust and political trust. These insights extend our current understanding of how times of crisis affect trust in the news media.

Mobile News Consumption and Its Relation to Young Adults’ Knowledge About and Participation in Referendums

The news media are among the most important sources of information about political events, such as referendums. For young adults, the smartphone has become the main device for accessing news. However, we know little about the factors influencing mobile news consumption and how this consumption is related to political knowledge and political participation. This study investigates the antecedents of young individuals’ smartphone news consumption and how it is correlated with their knowledge about and participation in two referendums in Switzerland. We record the mobile internet usage of 309 young adults and link their digital trace data to survey data. We show that trust in news media and the use of broadcast media are positively correlated with the duration of mobile news consumption. The use of social media leads to more news source diversity. However, we find that the duration of mobile news consumption and news source diversity are not correlated with political knowledge about or participation in the referendum. As interest in politics is also positively correlated with the diversity of news sources used by individual participants, our study supports the idea that attentive audiences use a broader range of news sources to inform themselves about referendums.

Advancing a qualitative turn in news media trust research

AbstractThe contemporary media environment represents the greatest challenge ever to journalism's legitimacy. Surveys conducted in different parts of the world highlight a decline in trust in news media. Due to the numerous changes in the news media environment, different investigative tools are required to grasp the mechanisms underlying news media trust from those adopted so far. This article provides a review of existing media trust research and argues that it is necessary to investigate news media trust (also) from a qualitative perspective because today understanding media trust is as crucial as measuring it.

The effects of transparency cues on news source credibility online: An investigation of ‘opinion labels’

Unlabeled opinionated content on search engines and social media can potentially affect news consumers’ perceptions of the credibility of news sources. This paper explores the effects of ‘opinion labels’ on news previews (known as ‘story cards’) on readers’ perceptions of news source credibility. Participants ( N = 389) in a 3x2x2 study were presented with a feed containing biased and unbiased content from one news source. Labeling opinionated content on story cards significantly increased the perceived credibility of the news source ( p < 0.01), supporting the role of opinion segmentation on credibility. The findings have socio-political implications as they indicate that design choices such as labeling content can significantly impact credibility and trust in news media.

Responding to “Fake News”: Journalistic Perceptions of and Reactions to a Delegitimising Force

The “fake news” phenomenon has permeated academic scholarship and popular debate since the 2016 US presidential election. Much has been written on the circulation of “fake news” and other forms of mis- and disinformation online. Despite its ongoing proliferation, less effort has been made to better understand the work of those engaged in daily news production—journalists themselves. Funded by the Australian Research Council project Journalism Beyond the Crisis, this study investigates how journalists perceive and respond to this phenomenon at a time when the industry has come under significant attack, and trust in news media has fallen globally. To do so, it draws on in-depth interviews with journalists in Australia and the UK, providing topical insights on their perceptions of and reactions to this profoundly delegitimising force. While on one hand, our findings show journalists expressing significant concern about the rise of “fake news,” they also proactively seek—and, in some cases, implement—deliberate counterstrategies to defend their profession. These strategies range from discursive means—such as stressing and re-asserting journalists’ professional authority and legitimacy—to tangible measures at an organisational level, including newsroom diversity and increased transparency in the news production process.

The effects of constructive journalism techniques on mood, comprehension, and trust

The role of news media in the perpetuation of misinformation has faced increasing scrutiny. Concerns have been raised about news media’s negative influence on mental health, increasing news avoidance, and decreasing trust in news. Constructive journalism is proposed to increase engagement with and trust in news media, reduce the mental health impact of news consumption, and provide a more accurate view of the world. However, constructive journalism studies primarily investigate the inclusion of solutions and positive emotions in news stories, to the exclusion of other techniques. Additionally, few studies have investigated constructive journalism’s effects on trust and comprehension. We used a randomised-controlled repeated-measures experimental design to investigate the effects of a comprehensive set of constructive journalism techniques on mood, comprehension, and trust among 238 Australian participants. Participants who read constructive articles reported higher positive emotion, and lower negative emotion, compared to participants who read the same articles without constructive features. However, participants in the constructive condition demonstrated worse comprehension than participants in the control, an effect partially mediated by negative emotion but not effort. No significant differences in trust in journalism as an institution or in article content were present between groups. However, when accounting for interest, constructive journalism demonstrated a significant negative effect on trust in the information, though positive where it increased mood. Further research is needed to calibrate techniques which balance the positive effects of constructive journalism with its ability to convey information.

News Media Trust and Sources of Political Information in West Africa: Mainstream vs. New Media in Ghana and Nigeria

Like many other developed democracies, most democratic countries in West Africa are facing challenges of trust in news media for political information, particularly with the emergence of the non-mainstream media - new social media. Previous research revealed that alternative news media trust is correlated with lower levels of trust in news in Africa and that the presence of private media have failed to offer alternative sources to government media. This paper for the first time seeks to investigate reasons for the increase in distrust in news media among the mainstream and non-mainstream media in West African Ghana and Nigeria, which is the main source for political information in the region. We conducted the study through online surveys for the audience of news media in Ghana and Nigeria who are interested in political news and are frequent users of both mainstream media and new social media for political information. We found out that even though people in these two countries use social media as an alternative source of obtaining political information, yet, they largely still trust mainstream media news for political information rather than social media.

That gut feeling: public perceptions of media coverage and science surrounding probiotic products

PurposeThe authors sought to unpack the paradox between increasing demand for probiotics products against inconclusive scientific evidence about the effectiveness. This paper investigated public understanding of the composition and benefits of probiotic products, measured trust in news media and scientists as sources of information about probiotic products and informational and attitudinal predictors of consumer trust in the news media and scientists.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey was conducted amongst a representative sample of 2000 UK consumers. Participants responded to multiple-choice questions and psychometric scales capturing probiotics knowledge, consumption, information seeking behaviour, attitudes to and confidence in the news media and probiotics scientists. Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and hierarchical regression modelling were performed.FindingsInformation exposure to probiotics content was highest from traditional media followed by online channels. Levels of confidence in probiotics scientists were higher than in the news media, even though these levels were highest amongst current consumers and lowest amongst non-consumers. Conflicting information, health consciousness and trust in nutrition stakeholders were identified as important predictors of trust in news media and scientists.Originality/valueThis study provides a large-scale nationally representative overview of public attitudes and sentiments related to probiotic products with a focus on attitudes towards the news media and the scientific establishment. The findings suggest a need for better consumer awareness about the state of science around probiotic products, interventions that could enable consumers to discern conflicting evidence or news reports, and critical skills that can render them more resilient to online misinformation.