The Watchdog Press in the Doghouse: A Comparative Study of Attitudes about Accountability Journalism, Trust in News, and News Avoidance

IF 4.1 1区社会学 Q1 COMMUNICATION International Journal of Press-Politics Pub Date : 2022-07-14 DOI:10.1177/19401612221112572

Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Benjamin Toff, R. Fletcher

{"title":"The Watchdog Press in the Doghouse: A Comparative Study of Attitudes about Accountability Journalism, Trust in News, and News Avoidance","authors":"Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Benjamin Toff, R. Fletcher","doi":"10.1177/19401612221112572","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The watchdog role has been one of the most widely discussed normative functions of the press. In this study, we examine the public’s attitudes toward the news media’s watchdog performance and how they correlate with trust in news and news avoidance, two important phenomena for democracy and the health of the public sphere. We further examine how individual predispositions (e.g. political interest, ideology) and contextual variables (e.g. press freedom) moderate these relationships. Based on data from the 2019 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, and controlling for a range of factors, we find that across 38 countries, watchdog performance evaluations are positively associated with trust in news but that they are also positively associated with higher levels of news avoidance. Last, we find that evaluations of media in other functions like helping citizens understand the most important topics of the day and choosing relevant topics were more strongly associated to trust in news and lower news avoidance levels than watchdog performance evaluations.","PeriodicalId":47605,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Press-Politics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Press-Politics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221112572","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 2

Abstract

The watchdog role has been one of the most widely discussed normative functions of the press. In this study, we examine the public’s attitudes toward the news media’s watchdog performance and how they correlate with trust in news and news avoidance, two important phenomena for democracy and the health of the public sphere. We further examine how individual predispositions (e.g. political interest, ideology) and contextual variables (e.g. press freedom) moderate these relationships. Based on data from the 2019 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, and controlling for a range of factors, we find that across 38 countries, watchdog performance evaluations are positively associated with trust in news but that they are also positively associated with higher levels of news avoidance. Last, we find that evaluations of media in other functions like helping citizens understand the most important topics of the day and choosing relevant topics were more strongly associated to trust in news and lower news avoidance levels than watchdog performance evaluations.

查看原文

微信好友朋友圈 QQ好友复制链接

本刊更多论文

狗窝里的看门新闻:问责新闻、新闻信任和新闻回避态度的比较研究

监督机构的作用一直是新闻界讨论最广泛的规范性职能之一。在这项研究中，我们考察了公众对新闻媒体监督表现的态度，以及它们与对新闻的信任和新闻回避之间的关系，这是民主和公共领域健康的两个重要现象。我们进一步研究了个人倾向（如政治利益、意识形态）和背景变量（如新闻自由）如何调节这些关系。基于《2019年路透社数字新闻报告》的数据，并控制了一系列因素，我们发现，在38个国家，监督机构的绩效评估与对新闻的信任呈正相关，但也与更高水平的新闻回避呈正相关。最后，我们发现，与监督机构的绩效评估相比，对媒体在帮助公民理解当天最重要的话题和选择相关话题等其他功能的评估与对新闻的信任和更低的新闻回避水平更密切相关。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文去求助

来源期刊

International Journal of Press-Politics Multiple-

CiteScore

12.10

自引率

8.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： The International Journal of Press/Politics is an interdisciplinary journal for the analysis and discussion of the role of the press and politics in a globalized world. The Journal is interested in theoretical and empirical research on the linkages between the news media and political processes and actors. Special attention is given to the following subjects: the press and political institutions (e.g. the state, government, political parties, social movements, unions, interest groups, business), the politics of media coverage of social and cultural issues (e.g. race, language, health, environment, gender, nationhood, migration, labor), the dynamics and effects of political communication.