Before reception: Trust in the news as infrastructure

Abstract

Given the necessity of trust to the fulfillment of the news media’s democratic and civic roles, the decline of trust in the news has become a major theme in journalism and communication studies, with researchers typically focusing on news audiences and measuring attitudes toward news products. Alongside the importance of reception, this paper advocates for conceptualizing trust not solely as a response to news, but as a key component in the infrastructure that makes news possible. Through an exploration of the role of trust at every stage of the newsmaking process, we argue that trust structures and underpins news funding, production, circulation, and audience measurement. Expanding the conceptual framework through which trust is assessed to consider its infrastructural role affords greater clarity on the consequences of distrust in news. We highlight future research directions and areas of inquiry made possible by theorizing trust in news in this way.

Incidental News Exposure on Facebook and Its Relation to Trust in News

“…While this was not possible to test with the available data, it leaves an important research question to investigate in the future, regarding the diversity of news behaviors on social media that we know very little about. Trust is embedded in all aspects of journalism—news production and consumption—and is shaped by a multitude of actors (Moran & Nechushtai, 2022). How social media impacts on news trust needs to be researched within this broader context.…”

Advancing a qualitative turn in news media trust research

“…fact‐checking or detached observation) that are assumed to ensure professional credibility (Schmidt et al., 2019). This means underestimating the complex and dynamic relationships between audiences and newsmakers that underpin news media trust (Moran & Nechushtai, 2022). Hence, rather than assuming ‘trust’ as a well‐defined and unproblematic term, there is more need than ever to talk to the audience to understand what this term actually means for them.…”

“…In this article we argue that, in light of the contemporary media environment, we must employ new research approaches and methodologies to grasp the mechanisms underlying news media trust. Since the extant knowledge about trust in news media has been mainly shaped by focusing on an audience's self-reported propensity towards generalized or particularized trust (Moran & Nechushtai, 2022), this article maintains that it is necessary to investigate news media trust also from a qualitative point of view, delving into both its cognitive and emotional dimension. This endeavour is valuable in itself, but it is also beneficial for designing subsequent survey research that can adopt new questions with which to investigate news media trust.…”

An endless struggle between discourses: How Italian journalists have been claiming their jurisdiction in the digital era

“…Indeed, digital media platforms alter the audience measurement dynamic because they allow news organizations to monitor, track, and interact with their audiences directly (Carlson 2018). Especially in the current context of economic and existential crises of journalism’s purpose in a digital ecosystem, measurements have become far more expansive than mere gauges of advertising reach (Christin, 2020; Moran and Nechushtai, 2022). At the same time, many platforms that circulate journalistic content operate according to a ‘rich get richer’ structure wherein ‘content that has been preferred (recirculated, liked, commented on, etc.)…”