Abstract
In today’s media landscape, people are encouraged to verify the news and information they encounter. Using an online experiment, this study explores audience’s intent to verify a news headline by manipulating whether the headline is true or false, from a source that varies in credibility, and perceived to be congruent or incongruent with participants’ partisanship. Results show that participants exhibit a higher intent to verify when they believe the headline is true, which is predicted by perceived congruency with preexisting ideological leanings. We discuss these findings in terms of the normative limitations of audience verification.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 52-71 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly |
Volume | 97 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2020 |
Keywords
- audience verification
- motivated reasoning
- news evaluations
- partisanship
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication