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Summary Topic: Crisis of Trust (Lectures + Articles)
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Summary of all lectures + required literature of the Topic Crisis of Trust
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Samenvatting Topic: The Crisis of TrustLecture 1: Introduction and conceptualization crisis of trust
Society is built on trust but people do not seem to trust organizations much anymore
Cycle of distrust between media and government; fake news as the core of the problem
What is trust? the general sense of well-being in relation to oneself and towards others
Trust is important because it helps improve economic processes and it’s necessary to build a civil
society and a sustainable democracy. Trust in institutions depend upon meeting social expectations
Concepts related to trust in the context of organizations: legitimacy, reputation, issues, power,
ethics, conflict, crisis, stakeholders etc.
What do organizations do to gain trust? strategic communication
Edelman Trust Barometer: government is less trusted than businesses
Ariely (2015)
Relation between media trust and political trust both important for trust in democracy
Importance of media environment media are windows through which we understand the world
around us shaping citizen political assessment. Different media environments:
1) Media autonomy: allows for more critical media
2) Journalistic professionalism: public-service orientation and professional norms
3) Party/press parallelism: media system parallels party system
Virtuous circle: relation media trust and political trust weaker when more media autonomy and
professionalism and less party/press parallelism well-functioning democracy requires
trustworthy flow of information
Flew (2019)
Relationship between populism and declining trust
Factors underpinning the rise of populism: (1) traditional media, (2) mediatization, (3) rise of fake
news, (4) the platformised internet and the rise of social news, (5) the crisis of institutional trust, (6)
public opinion data, (7) lower trust in digital platforms and (8) the spiral of distrust
Moreno et al. (2021)
Trust is critical to the functioning of our society (helps to cope with risk and uncertainty) central
to the practice of PR (strategic communication)
New Institutionalism Theory: how is trust in PR perceived on three levels?
1) Macro: society/professional
2) Meso: department in the organization
3) Micro: individual and group actions
Individual trust is higher than trust in departments and profession thus building trust in the
organizations and their context, not so much in the leaders
Communication that can built trust is based on knowledge, transparency, and ethics
Lecture 2: Trust affected by media bias and misinformation
Why is trust in news media declining? polarization of news and concentration of the elites (biases)
The sources of mistrust
- Structural biases: negativity and distortion bias
- Biases on the individual level (norms of objectivity)
- Accusation of fake news and talking about fake news (salience and context of misinformation
threat)
, Where does this come from? changes in the media landscape: commercial pressure, professionalization,
decreasing press-party parallelism, measurable output, struggle for complete coverage of what happens in
society choices in news selection and production results in media biases
Selection heuristics and looking for the largest audience
1) Negativity bias: bad news (more dramatic and sensational) is more salient than good news
News value theory: selection criteria attracts larger audience
2) Distortion bias: the low frequency of events of certain incidents partly explains why they are given
more attention news as paradoxical (it’s about the exceptions)
Episodic framing (individual circumstances) rather than thematic framing (general context)
Results in distorted worldview and biases reality versus ‘’media reality’’
Van der Meer et al. (2019)
The public depends on the media as a source of information and journalists decide what goes in the
news and what does not and with this decision, journalists have the possibility to create our reality
Case of plane crashes: More media attention for aviation incidents, but the actual aviation incidents
have decreased distorted view on the safety of planes
Skovsgaard et al. (2013)
How journalists’ role perceptions impact their implementation of the objectivity norm
Objectivity as the defining norm of modern journalism pervading new production by guiding
journalists when they select, collect, and present the news audience must feel that they can
trust this ‘second-hand ‘information
Attack on their objectivity
1. Journalists’ failure to meet the requirements; political bias of journalists/ news organization
2. Ability to describe reality; construction rather than description; structurally more biased
3. Objectivity undesirable; should take a moral stance; engage in improving societal problems
Elements of objectivity: (1) no subjectivity, (2) balance, (3) hard facts, (4) value judgement
Role perceptions:
1) Passive mirror: dissemination of information, reflecting reality
2) Watchdog: active; standing for marginalized groups in society
3) Public forum: Letting regular people voice their opinions and try to engage them in debates
4) Public mobilizer: leading the public towards solutions to societal problems.
Egelhofer & Lecheler (2019)
Fake news as a two-dimensional concept
1) As a genre: describing the deliberate creation of pseudo journalistic disinformation; the actual
intention of misleading, creation of non-real news (e.g., propaganda)
Where does it come from?
Technological developments: digital and social media; fake news financially attractive
Socio-political trends: mistrust, polarization, higher acceptance of alternative sources
2) As a label: describing the political instrumentalization of the terms to delegitimize news media;
To disregard news media without any arguments, biased, level of emotions; characterized by
hostility and incivility (the weaponization of fake news) delegitimization of journalism
Where does it come from?
Politicians can now circumvent journalistic gatekeeping and talk directly to the public
Increasing attacks on elites
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