Cynics and Skeptics

Abstract

With the increase in citizen-generated news, the need to understand how individual predispositions interact with news sources to influence perceptions of news credibility becomes increasingly important. Using a web-based experiment, this study examines the influences individual predispositions toward the media and politics have on perceived credibility of mainstream and citizen journalism. Analyzing data drawn from a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, results indicate that media skepticism and political cynicism interact, such that cynics and skeptics perceive citizen journalism as more credible, while non-cynics and non-skeptics think mainstream journalism is more credible.

NOAA Radios and Neighbourhood Networks: Demographic Factors for Channel Preference for Hurricane Evacuation Information

“…Accuracy of information, source credibility and other issues related to messages in communication have been studied not only in disasters (Madden, 2015;Xie, Wang, Zhang & Yu, 2011) but in the general context of how people receive, perceive and process information (Carr, Barnidge, Lee & Tsang, 2014;Kim, 2011;Montanaro & Bryan, 2014;Young, DeSarbo & Morwitz, 1998). Lindell et al (2004) point out that, 'the tendency to confound message sources and channels makes it even more difficult to assess the effects of the information channels on the stages of the protective action decision-making process' (p. 145).…”

A case study in news articles, users comments and a Facebook group for Article 3 of the Greek Constitution

“…In fact, in some cases citizens became journalists and covered several incidents. This was thought to be a solution to the problem of declining reliability of journalistic coverage (Carr et al, 2014). This development is indissolubly linked to social media, where the produced content (e.g., articles, videos, photographs, etc.)…”

Measuring the Effects of Interpretive Journalism on Trust and Credibility Perceptions in the Context of Political News Coverage

“…First, a common issue with previous research on media distrust has been the inability for scholars within this field to set forth a consistent definition of trust within the context of political communications (Becker, 2011;Hanitzsch et al, 2018;Hopmann et al, 2015;Johnson & Kaye, 2009;Jones, 2004). A further problem within this field is that trust and credibility at times have been used synonymously while they represent distinctly different constructs (Carr, Barnidge, Byung Gu Lee, & Tsang, 2014;McComas & Trumbo, 2001;Singletary, 1976). The concepts of trust and credibility have long been studied in tandem within the context of the news media (Johnson & Kaye, 2009;Karlson, Clerwall & Nord, 2014;Kohring & Matthes, 2007;Renn & Levine, 1991).…”

“…Often involved in the discussion of distrust in political news coverage is that of media credibility. The terms credibility and trust have regularly been used by researchers to define one another (e.g., Carr et al, 2014;McComas & Trumbo, 2001;Singletary, 1976). For decades, organizational communication, as well as communication and marketing researchers have studied the relationship between credibility and trust.…”

“…Later, measures for medium credibility were developed to assess topics like respondents attitudes towards newspapers (Gaziano & Mcgrath, 1986). Pertaining to both source and medium credibility, research has investigated topics such as credibility of blogs (Johnson, Kaye, Bichard & Wong, 2007;Chesney & Su, 2009;Johnson & Kaye, 2009;Juffinger, A., Granitzer, M., & Lex, 2009;Kang, 2010), the impacts of peer endorsement on perceived credibility (Van Reijmersdal, Neijens & Smit, 2010;Cole & Greer, 2013) and the perceived credibility of mainstream vs. citizen journalism (Carr et al, 2014).…”