The link between changing news use and trust: longitudinal analysis of 46 countries

Richard Fletcher*, Simge Andı, Sumitra Badrinathan, Kirsten A. Eddy, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Camila Mont'Alverne, Craig T. Robertson, Amy Ross Arguedas, Anne Schulz, Benjamin Toff, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

Changing levels of public trust in the news are of deep concern to both researchers and practitioners. We use data from 2015 to 2023 in 46 countries to explore how trust in news has changed, while also exploring the links with sociodemographic variables, differences by media system, and changing patterns of news use. We find that (a) there has been a small overall decline in trust in news since 2015, but also that (b) there are different trends in different countries. More specifically, trust has declined more in media environments that have become less structured by television news use, and increasingly structured by social media news use. Our findings underscore how changing structures of media use may be central to explaining trust dynamics in recent years, which suggests new avenues for restoring trust where it has eroded.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberjqae044
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of Communication
Early online date22 Nov 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 22 Nov 2024

Keywords

  • trust in news
  • journalism
  • television news
  • social media news
  • comparative research
  • media systems

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