TY - JOUR
T1 - The link between changing news use and trust
T2 - longitudinal analysis of 46 countries
AU - Fletcher, Richard
AU - Andı, Simge
AU - Badrinathan, Sumitra
AU - Eddy, Kirsten A.
AU - Kalogeropoulos, Antonis
AU - Mont'Alverne, Camila
AU - Robertson, Craig T.
AU - Arguedas, Amy Ross
AU - Schulz, Anne
AU - Toff, Benjamin
AU - Kleis Nielsen, Rasmus
PY - 2024/11/22
Y1 - 2024/11/22
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - trust in news
KW - journalism
KW - television news
KW - social media news
KW - comparative research
KW - media systems
U2 - 10.1093/joc/jqae044
DO - 10.1093/joc/jqae044
M3 - Article
SN - 0021-9916
JO - Journal of Communication
JF - Journal of Communication
M1 - jqae044
ER -