Video News Releases and the Public: The Impact of Source Labeling on the Perceived Credibility of Television News

Abstract

Observers of the television news business have suggested that public judgments of the credibility of news stories and the news industry would suffer if audiences knew that external sources routinely provided story content. An experiment examined whether on‐screen labels identifying externally supplied video news release (VNR) content in television news can affect audience perceptions of the credibility of the news and the VNR provider. The results suggest that news audiences might not use the presence of VNR content in evaluations of news stories, news programs, and VNR producers. However, there is evidence that news audiences are concerned about the use of VNR content and support the use of labels.

Informing Consumers about “Hidden” Advertising: A Literature Review of the Effects of Disclosing Sponsored Content

“…On television, Tewksbury et al (2011) found no main effects of labeling VNRs on viewers' attention to the news story. However, a recent eye tracking study on the effects of disclosing brand placement in television programs demonstrated that the visual attention television viewers paid to a disclosure at the beginning of the program increased their visual attention to the brand placements (Boerman et al, 2015a).…”

“…These studies showed mixed results: in print, advertorial labels had either no effects or negative effects on attention to the sponsored content (Cameron & Curtin, 1995;Kim et al, 2001), whereas on televisions disclosures resulted in no (Tewksbury et al, 2011) or positive effects on attention (Boerman et al, 2015a). The effects of disclosures on the activation of persuasion knowledge are more straightforward.…”

“…Likewise, in VNRs, the percentage of participants that could recall seeing a label identifying the source of the video content was 47% (Tewksbury, Jensen, & Coe, 2011) and merely 19% (Nelson & Park, 2014). In 9 addition, an eye tracking study (Boerman, Van Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2015a) comparing three different types of disclosures in a police series, showed that viewers' visual attention to the disclosure (a measure of whether participant's eyes stayed on the disclosure for at least 80 milliseconds [i.e., a fixation]) ranged from 8% to 94% depending on its type.…”

“…In five studies, the effects of disclosure content were examined (Boerman et al, 2015a;Carr & Hayes, 2014;Dekker & Van Reijmersdal, 2013;Tessitore & Geuens, 2013;Tewksbury et al, 2011). Dekker and Van Reijmersdal (2013) examined whether providing different types of information in a textual disclosure affected persuasion.…”

“…Similarly, Tewksbury et al (2011) exposed viewers to two types of disclosures for VNRs: A so-called communicator label that said that a specific group created part of the story, versus a moderator label saying that the network wanted viewers to know that a specific group created part of the story. They found no differences between these textual disclosures on persuasion knowledge or beliefs about bias in VNRs.…”