Mainstream Media Recirculation of Trust-Reducing Social Media Messages

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  • Christensen, D.J.
    • Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Lovett, J.
    • Other Affiliation: Wake Forest University
  • Curiel, J.A.
    • Other Affiliation: Ohio Northern University
Abstract
  • Citizens need to trust in the integrity of news reporting for the free press to fulfill its role as a democratic institution that enables citizens to hold representatives accountable. Growing research has shown that increased use of social media erodes trust in legacy news. However, trust-reducing social media messages are not contained to social media platforms; they are widely recirculated by the mainstream media. We argue that mainstream media corporations select social media messages to recirculate precisely because of their trust-reducing features in order to respond to short-term competitive market incentives. We turn to Donald Trump’s Twitter posts as examples of trust-reducing messages and show that the media cites more trust-reducing messages more quickly and more frequently than less trust-reducing messages. These findings implicate mainstream media corporations alongside social media platforms in the systematic and ongoing degradation of trust in legacy news reporting.
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  • Article
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  • In Copyright
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  • Attribution 4.0 International
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  • American Politics Research
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  • English
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  • 1532-673X
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  • SAGE Publications Inc.

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