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

Bibliographic Data

ID7971247
AuthorsKirill Bryanov (0000-0001-7992-2216, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia), Reinhold Kliegl (0000-0002-0180-8488, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia, corresponding author), Olessia Koltsova (0000-0002-2669-3154, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia), Alex Miltsov (0000-0003-2561-1871, Bishop's University), Sergei Pashakhin (0000-0003-0361-2064, Institute for Political Science, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany), Alexander Porshnev (0000-0002-0075-1061, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia), Yadviga Sinyavskaya (0000-0003-2385-3295, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia), Maksim Terpilovskii (0000-0003-2586-4633, Laboratory for Social and Cognitive Informatics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia), Victoria Vziatysheva (0000-0002-3762-6758, Independent scholar, Passau, Germany)
Year2023
Volume40
Issue2
Pages115-146
Publication date2023-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1058-4609 • E-ISSN: 1091-7675
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10584609.2023.2172492
OpenAlexW4321443601
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited64

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

Consistency (knowledge bases · Credibility · Linguistics · Mainstream · Narrative · News media · Perception · Political science · Public relations · Sample (material · Computer Science · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

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