In the brand we trust? The moderating role of journalistic values and news topics in the relation between news source and trust in news

Alyt Damstra, Elina Lindgren, Rens Vliegenthart, Hajo Boomgaarden, Jesper Strömbäck, Yariv Tsfati

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper examines the relation between news source and trust, while considering the moderating role of journalistic values and type of issue the news deals with (politicized/ not politicized). We conducted a survey experiment in the Netherlands and Sweden. Results suggest that source type indeed matters for trust in news, and that information stemming from traditional sources is much more trusted than identical information coming from alternative websites or social media. The impact of source cue is partly explained by the weight people attach to journalistic values. This effect holds regardless of the issue the news deals with.

Original languageEnglish
Article number14648849251350374
JournalJournalism and Communication Monographs
DOIs
StateAccepted/In press - 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Keywords

  • Journalistic values
  • news media
  • news trust
  • political communication
  • survey

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Communication

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