Why Do You Trust News? The Event-Related Potential Evidence of Media Channel and News Type

Abstract

Media is the principal source of public information, and people's trust in news has been a critical mechanism in social cohesion. In recent years, the vast growth of new media (e.g., internet news portals) has brought huge change to the way information is conveyed, cannibalizing much of the space of traditional media (e.g., traditional newspapers). This has led to renewed attention on media credibility. The study aims to explore the impact of media channel on trust in news and examine the role of news type. Twenty-six participants were asked to make trust–distrust decisions after reading a variety of news headlines from different media channels while undergoing electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring. The electrophysiological results showed that, for hard news (e.g., important news related to public life), the new media condition elicited smaller N100 and larger P200 amplitudes than the traditional media condition. However, for soft news (e.g., entertainment, and non-related to vital interest), there was no significant difference. The study suggests that the fitness of media channel and news type may influence the evaluation of news, impacting participants' affective arousal and attention allocation in the early stage and influencing trust in news. These results provide neurocognitive evidence of individuals' trust toward hard and soft news consumed via different media channels, yielding new insights into trust in media and contributing to media trust theory.