This study proposes that media distrust and cynicism are two related but distinct perceptions that indicate qualitatively different ways in which audiences relate to news media. To substantiate this, we developed a new instrument to measure media cynicism. Factor analyses showed that the indicators of media distrust and cynicism are not influenced by the same underlying dimension. Structural equation modeling indicated that while distrust appears to be predominately caused by perceived media responsiveness, media cynicism may be susceptible to a wider range of factors.
To examine the prevalence and diversity of older adults on primetime television, and age stereotyping in these portrayals, we analysed the contents of 112 episodes of popular American television series aired between 2004 and 2018. We identified 6.6 per cent of characters as aged 65 and older – a slight improvement to the values reported in previous studies. However, older adult characters are still grossly under-represented, considering the actual proportion of older adults in the general population of the United States of America. Further, the typical older character was young-old, male, Caucasian, middle-class, able-bodied and straight – if his sexuality was referenced. Older women still face double discrimination in media representations. In addition, older adult characters with ethnicities other than Caucasian and African American are virtually invisible in primetime fiction series. Similarly, old-old characters, sexual minorities and persons with disabilities are particularly rare among older adult characters in this type of programming. Finally, portrayals of 51.9 per cent of characters included at least some elements of age stereotypes, most of which were positive. The most commonly applied positive and negative stereotypes were found to be the golden ager and the shrew, respectively. The findings are discussed in the context of the dominant discourse of ageing and the potential implications of how various social groups perceive ageing and older adults.
Amidst a widely discussed crisis in audience-media relations, this study argues for the importance of a more nuanced understanding of audience animosity toward professional journalism. Based on 20 in-depth interviews with diverse news audiences in Serbia, we explored how media distrust and cynicism can be empirically distinguished. While both perceptions entail negative expectations from journalism, our findings indicate that they diverge with respect to interviewees’ views on journalistic ideals and integrity, differentiation between media actors, and receptivity to journalistic performance. In the interviews, cynicism emerged as the deterministic and process-oriented perception that journalism serves no other purposes than financial profit and audience manipulation. In contrast, distrust was a more nuanced, probing, and outcome-oriented perception that may be open to correction in the presence of counter-evidence. These findings can help media researchers and educators to better diagnose and address negative media perceptions.
Declining trust in news media has often been recognized as one of the major challenges facing modern journalism with potentially detrimental consequences for democratic processes. In this article, we examine the predictive potential of cultural-political and performance factors on public trust in news media in the context of a young democracy. Specifically, we have analyzed to what extent citizens’ populist attitudes and perceptions of journalistic roles relate to the levels of media trust using data from an online survey of Serbian respondents (N = 200). The findings showed that support for populism did not significantly predict trust in news media in general after controlling for relevant factors, most importantly political trust. However, populist attitudes were found to be related to the amount of trust citizens have in distinct types of news media –i.e., those who support populism exhibited less trust in public broadcasters than in online news outlets. The analyses also revealed that the more Serbian citizens perceived news media as being successful at performing interpretive and mobilizing roles, the more trust they placed in the media.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.