Anonymous sources hurt credibility of news stories across cultures: A comparative experiment in America and China

Pjesivac, Ivanka; Rui, Rachel

doi:10.1177/1748048514548534

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Mass media exert a significant effect on spreading and seeking health information [31], and they play an important role in early diagnoses and disease management [32]. In consideration of the decrease in the credibility of media campaigns [33, 34], patients with a prevention focus are less likely to use mass media than those with a promotion focus. Emerging treatment-related health information is mainly disseminated to the public through mass media.…”

Section: Research Model and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do patients follow physicians’ advice? The influence of patients’ regulatory focus on adherence: an empirical study in China

Zhang

et al. 2019

BMC Health Serv Res

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Background In general, medical regimens and treatments are more likely to be effective if patients follow their physicians’ advice. However, limited studies have focused on the relationship between regulatory focus and patient adherence. This study explores the antecedents of patient adherence employing regulatory focus theory. Methods This study established a research model consisting of two independent variables, two mediators, one dependent variable, two moderators, three control variables, and six hypotheses. An online survey involving 336 valid responses was conducted to collect data in China. We used structural equation modelling and confirmatory factor analysis to test the hypotheses and to develop the research model. Results The reliability and validity of the measures were accepted. In terms of control variables, age had a positive effect on conservative treatment-related health information seeking behaviour, and patients with different resident statuses held different attitudes towards seeking conservative treatment-related health information. However, educational level did not have any effect on the variables of the research model. The hypothesis testing results corroborate that promotion focus had a positive impact on patients’ emerging treatment-related health information seeking behaviour; prevention focus had a positive impact on patients’ conservative treatment-related health information seeking behaviour, which had a positive impact on patient adherence. In addition, media campaigns had a positive impact on the relationship between promotion focus and emerging treatment-related health information seeking behaviour, and website reputation had a positive impact on the relationship between prevention focus and conservative treatment-related health information seeking behaviour. Conclusions Individuals can be encouraged to seek health information and share health-related knowledge through mass media, such as the Internet, when the quality of information, especially information from online sources, is guaranteed. In addition, physicians need to improve their professionalism and expand their knowledge of conservative healthcare. As a further application of our work, an Internet information recommendation system can be designed to recommend different types of health information for users according to their regulatory focus. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-019-4127-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Research Model and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do patients follow physicians’ advice? The influence of patients’ regulatory focus on adherence: an empirical study in China

Zhang

et al. 2019

BMC Health Serv Res

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“…Pakistan media may have in their political reports given reasons for sources seeking anonymity to convince the audience about the fear such sources faced in being identified and also to boost media credibility in the eyes of the audience. Pjesivac and Rui (2014) found that news audience based out of the United States and China considered news based only on anonymous sources as less credible than stories where journalists identified their sources. This may be a pointer to enhanced journalistic credibility if anonymous sources are identified as much as possible in news reports.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…A study of news reports that appeared in the Chinese press between 2001 and 2010 and that turned out to be false showed that half of the news stories attributed information to only anonymous sources (Zhang, 2011). Pjesivac and Rui (2014) found that people in the United States and China rated news stories with named sources as more credible than those stories that had only anonymous sources to provide news. Li (1998) carried out a content-analysis of the sources used in The New York Times' coverage of China.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 98%

mpact of Political Freedom and Uncertainty Avoidance on Anonymous Source Use in Media

Mazumda¹,

Wal²

2018

ijas

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“…On the other hand, some scholars posited that an anonymous source would be perceived as less credible than an identified source under such situations as news storytelling (Pjesivac & Rui, 2014), high-quality stories (Sternadori & Thorson, 2009), and computer-mediated group communication (Rains, 2007b). A possible explanation is that message senders are expected to follow the cultural and societal norm of identifying themselves while sending out their messages (Forman, Ghose, & Wiesenfeld, 2008;Rains, 2007a); thereby, if they go against the norm by concealing their identities, it is probably because they do not want to be held accountable for their contributions (Rains, 2007b) and their words are thus regarded as less credible.…”

Section: Anonymitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By providing a measure of protection, anonymity allows message senders to deliver their messages without the consequence of having the information attributed to them (Rains, 2007a). Previous studies have examined how anonymity affects message credibility and persuasiveness, but drawn inconsistent conclusions (Chesney & Su, 2010; Pjesivac & Rui, 2014; Rains, 2007a; Sternadori & Thorson, 2009).…”

Section: Anonymitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of “Anonymous Reviewer”: A Study of Anonymity, Affect Intensity, and Message Valence in the Cyberspace

Cheng

Liu

2017

Journal of Language and Social Psychology

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This study aims to illustrate how anonymity, together with affect intensity and message valence, affects message receivers' responses. A 2 (anonymous vs. revealed identity) × 2 (low vs. high affect intensity) × 2 (positive vs. negative valence) betweensubjects experiment was conducted. It was found that when message affect intensity was low, an anonymous message was more effective in generating trust toward the message and message processing depth than a message with an identified sender. However, such a difference was insignificant when affect intensity was high. Moreover, a significant interaction effect between affect intensity and message valence was found on message processing depth. When affect intensity was high, a positive message elicited more message processing. When affect intensity was low, there was no significant difference between positive and negative messages.

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Anonymous sources hurt credibility of news stories across cultures: A comparative experiment in America and China

Cited by 13 publications

References 49 publications

Why do patients follow physicians’ advice? The influence of patients’ regulatory focus on adherence: an empirical study in China

Why do patients follow physicians’ advice? The influence of patients’ regulatory focus on adherence: an empirical study in China

mpact of Political Freedom and Uncertainty Avoidance on Anonymous Source Use in Media

The Effect of “Anonymous Reviewer”: A Study of Anonymity, Affect Intensity, and Message Valence in the Cyberspace

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