School of Communication

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/24248

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Browsing School of Communication by Subject "1903 Journalism and Professional Writing"

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    The effectiveness of credibility indicator interventions in a partisan context
    Duncan, Megan A. (SAGE, 2019-12-01)
    Audiences, who cannot investigate the credibility of most news stories for themselves, rely on noncontent heuristic cues to form credibility judgments. For most media, these heuristics were stable over time. Emerging formats of journalism, however, require audiences to learn to interpret what new heuristics credibility cues mean about the story’s credibility. In an experiment, participants (N = 254) were given instructions about how to interpret the credibility cues in three formats as they read a politicized news story, which were compared with a control condition with no instructions. Results show the timing and source increase the effectiveness of the instructions.
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    What's in a Label? Negative Credibility Labels in Partisan News
    Duncan, Megan A. (SAGE, 2020-10-13)
    Concern about partisan audiences blindly following partisan news brands while simultaneously being unable to distinguish the credible news from hoax news dominates media criticism and theoretical inquiries. Companies and media literacy advocates have suggested credibility labels as a solution. This experiment tests the effectiveness of credibility labels at the intersection of partisan news brands and partisan news stories. Using news credibility theory and Partisan Media Opinion hypothesis, it investigates the effects credibility labels have on partisan audiences, partisan news brands, and partisan news stories. It finds that credibility labels may be an effective news literacy tool, and that credibility is enhanced when the news story’s ideological perspective does not match the ideology of the news brand.