You’ve lost that trusting feeling: Diminishing trust in the news media in rural versus urban US communities

The correlation between the Big Five personality traits and political information exposure

“…In particular, people born after 2000 often browse political news in different media channels and have greater variety in their preferences than older people (Diehl et al, 2019). Third, location has also been correlated with selective exposure to political news (Hmielowski et al, 2021). Due to the differences between urban and rural areas, people living in such regions are often exposed to different political news.…”

Country Roads and Cityscapes: Examining the Relationship Between Place-Based Identity and Feelings Toward Journalists

“…In essence, evaluations of the media might fluctuate based on where someone lives or the locale with which they identify. For example, Hmielowski and his colleagues (2021) found that, compared with people living in urban areas, people in rural areas expressed less trust in the media in 2018 than they did in 1972. One reason for this reduction in rural residents’ trust might be that the news media could be seen as representing urban ideals and values, as many journalists themselves possess an urban social identity (Kreiss, 2018).…”

“…In essence, people’s evaluations of journalists and news media could serve as an intervening variable when looking at place-based identity and media use. Indeed, Hmielowski and his colleagues (2021) reported conditional indirect correlations between where people live and news use through trust in media, moderated by time and political ideology. Given the similarities between our work and previous studies looking at this topic, we believe there could be an indirect correlation between place-based identity and news use through people’s feelings about journalists.…”

“…With mounting evidence that the public’s evaluations of journalism and media continue to decline (Hmielowski et al, 2021), it is important to better understand why people hold negative views of the news media (Fisher et al, 2021). As a result, news organizations and journalists have spent a great deal of time and effort thinking about ways to increase their level of credibility among the public.…”

“…This logic has also been applied to how people living in these different parts of the country use and think about media in the United States. For example, scholars have noted differences in the use of (Beaudoin & Thorson, 2004; Hindman & Beam, 2014) and trust in (Hmielowski et al, 2021; Wells et al, 2021) media, depending on where people live, with people in rural areas using more local news, fewer prestige news outlets (e.g., The New York Times ), and reporting lower levels of trust in media compared with those living in urban parts of the country.…”