What Drives Perceptions of Foreign News Coverage Credibility? A Cross-National Experiment Including Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine

Political Communication Vol 40, 2023 - Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2172492

Autor: 

1. Kirill Bryanov; Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; kbrya21@lsu.edu; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7992-2216
2. Reinhold Kliegl; Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; Department of Sports and Health Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany; reinhold.kliegl@uni-potsdam.de; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0180-8488
3. Olessia Koltsova; Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; ekoltsova@hse.ru; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2669-3154 
4. Alex Miltsov; Department of Sociology, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada; amiltsov@ubishops.ca; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2561-1871
5. Sergei Pashakhin; Institute for Political Science, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany; sergei.pashakhin@uni-bamberg.de https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0361-2064
6. Alexander Porshnev, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; aporshnev@hse.ru; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0075-1061
7. Yadviga Sinyavskaya; Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; yasinyawskaya@mail.ru; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2385-3295
8. Maksim Terpilovskii, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; maximtrp@gmail.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2586-4633
9. Victoria Vziatysheva; Independent scholar, Passau, Germany; vvzyatysheva@hse.ru; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3762-6758 

Keywords: News credibility, international news, online experiment, political communication, strategic narratives, rally-round-the-flag. 

Abstract: Research on news credibility and susceptibility to fake news has overwhelmingly focused on individual and message-level factors explaining why people view some news items as more credible than others. We argue that the consistency of the message’s content with the dominant mainstream narrative can have a powerful explanatory capacity as well, particularly in the domain of international news. We test this hypothesis experimentally using a sample of 8,559 social media users in three post-Soviet countries. Our analyses suggest that the consistency with the dominant narrative increases the perceived credibility of foreign affairs news independently of their veracity. We also demonstrate the moderating role of international conflict, government support, and news language in some national contexts but not others. Finally, we report how the effects of these factors on credibility vary according to whether the news items are real or fabricated and discuss the societal implications of our findings.

Idioma: Inglés 

Publicación: 21 Feb 2023

Volumen: Political Communication Volume 40, 2023 - Issue 2. 

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