Who said that? Impact of source expertise: A generations focused experiment on the perception of radio news sources’ gender, ethos and expertise.

Abstract

Building on previous research exploring effects of spokesperson type and gender on audience perceptions of spokesperson and message credibility, this study focused on effects of news sources specifically for radio news. This was one of the first studies to explore the effects of source type (journalist or outside expert) and gender on perceptions of source and message credibility, and message importance for the general U.S. population. A 2 x 2 experiment was performed with 900 participants, and analysis found that source type and gender had significant impact on audience perceptions of source and the message. We further analyzed these effects breaking down the audience based on generations and gender and found similar results. The results of the analyses reveal some interesting findings, especially in the areas of choice of media for news, sexism in the news, etc., that need to be further explored.