Sora Park, Caroline Fisher, Richard Fletcher, Edson Tandoc, Uwe Dulleck, Janet Fulton, Agata Stepnik, Shengnan Pinker Yao
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Research shows the growth of online information has led to a decline in audience trust in mainstream news. However, how this lowered trust in the news affects different audiences’ attitudes and news consumption behaviour is less understood. Our thematic analysis of 40 semi-structured interviews with Australian heavy and non-news users of mainstream news shows that responses vary with respect to the effort taken to verify dubious news. Among heavy news users, responses include ‘pragmatic scepticism’, ‘selective trust’ and ‘generalised cynicism’ which tend to drive verification and fact-checking behaviours. These findings suggest that mistrust in mainstream news is not necessarily a bad thing, as it can lead to greater critical involvement with news and information. However, many non-news users depicted ‘critically conscious’ or ‘cynically disengaged’ attitudes towards news. A lack of trust can drive a low-effort response, particularly among non-news consumers, creating a downward spiral of disengagement.
期刊介绍：
New Media & Society engages in critical discussions of the key issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and on both theoretical and empirical research. The journal includes contributions on: -the individual and the social, the cultural and the political dimensions of new media -the global and local dimensions of the relationship between media and social change -contemporary as well as historical developments -the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change the relationship between theory, policy and practice.
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