TY - JOUR
T1 - Issue stance and perceived journalistic motives explain divergent audience perceptions of fake news
AU - Tsang, Stephanie Jean
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Communication Faculty Research Grant 2018/19 (Ref. CFRG 18-19/03)
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2022/4/1
Y1 - 2022/4/1
N2 - Issue stances have always been an important factor in audiences’ news processing, and this study found that audiences’ attributions of motives to journalists can also affect news evaluations, particularly regarding whether a story is fake news. By exposing participants in Hong Kong to a news post (N = 215) via an online experiment, the findings suggest participants with opposing issue stances on the extradition bill controversy are likely to perceive the exact same new story as inaccurate and fake to significantly different degrees, consistent with the line of hostile media perceptions research. More notably, the phenomenon can be explained by the motives participants attribute to journalists. Among bill supporters, perceiving the journalists to be advocating mediates the relationship between perceived news inaccuracy and news fakeness; whereas perceiving journalists to be defending the authorities mediates the same relationship among bill opponents. Overall, the importance of motive attributions should not be ignored in journalism studies.
AB - Issue stances have always been an important factor in audiences’ news processing, and this study found that audiences’ attributions of motives to journalists can also affect news evaluations, particularly regarding whether a story is fake news. By exposing participants in Hong Kong to a news post (N = 215) via an online experiment, the findings suggest participants with opposing issue stances on the extradition bill controversy are likely to perceive the exact same new story as inaccurate and fake to significantly different degrees, consistent with the line of hostile media perceptions research. More notably, the phenomenon can be explained by the motives participants attribute to journalists. Among bill supporters, perceiving the journalists to be advocating mediates the relationship between perceived news inaccuracy and news fakeness; whereas perceiving journalists to be defending the authorities mediates the same relationship among bill opponents. Overall, the importance of motive attributions should not be ignored in journalism studies.
KW - Cynicism
KW - disinformation
KW - fake news perception
KW - journalistic motives
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085890416&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1464884920926002
DO - 10.1177/1464884920926002
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85085890416
SN - 1464-8849
VL - 23
SP - 823
EP - 840
JO - Journalism
JF - Journalism
IS - 4
ER -