IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i24p12986-d698413.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining News Trust in Social Media News during the COVID-19 Pandemic—The Role of a Need for Cognition and News Engagement

Author

Listed:
  • Ines Kožuh

    (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia)

  • Peter Čakš

    (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia)

Abstract

During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, people have, in many cases, acquired information primarily from social media. Users’ need to stay informed and the intensive circulation of news has led to the spread of misinformation. As they have engaged in news, it has raised the question of trust. This study provides a model on how news trust can be explained through a need for cognition and news engagement. Accordingly, 433 Slovenian social media users participated in our survey. Structural equation modeling revealed that (1) the lower the need for cognition and the more prior knowledge about COVID-19 users have, the more they believe that social media news comprises all facts about the disease; (2) the more users believe that news comprises all essential facts, the more they trust that the news depicts the actual situation about COVID-19 accurately; (3) the more users are interested in engaging with social media news, the more they trust that the actual situation about COVID-19 is depicted accurately. These findings may help authorities to frame messages about COVID-19 effectively. We suggest investing more effort in disseminating new scientific evidence about the disease to contribute to the accurate shaping of knowledge about COVID-19 among social media users.

Suggested Citation

  • Ines Kožuh & Peter Čakš, 2021. "Explaining News Trust in Social Media News during the COVID-19 Pandemic—The Role of a Need for Cognition and News Engagement," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:24:p:12986-:d:698413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/12986/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/12986/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicole M. Krause & Isabelle Freiling & Becca Beets & Dominique Brossard, 2020. "Fact-checking as risk communication: the multi-layered risk of misinformation in times of COVID-19," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(7-8), pages 1052-1059, August.
    2. Cong Liu & Yi Liu, 2020. "Media Exposure and Anxiety during COVID-19: The Mediation Effect of Media Vicarious Traumatization," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Cristina M. Pulido & Laura Ruiz-Eugenio & Gisela Redondo-Sama & Beatriz Villarejo-Carballido, 2020. "A New Application of Social Impact in Social Media for Overcoming Fake News in Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-15, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Piper Liping Liu & Vincent Huang & Melannie Zhan & Xinshu Zhao, 2023. ""Nice You Share in Return": Informational Sharing, Reciprocal Sharing, and Life Satisfaction Amid COVID-19 Pandemic," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(2), pages 453-471, January.
    2. Mohammed Arshad Khan & Faisal Alhathal & Shahid Alam & Syed Mohd Minhaj, 2023. "Importance of Social Networking Sites and Determining Its Impact on Brand Image and Online Shopping: An Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-22, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Massimiliano Scopelliti & Maria Giuseppina Pacilli & Antonio Aquino, 2021. "TV News and COVID-19: Media Influence on Healthy Behavior in Public Spaces," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Lucia Freira & Marco Sartorio & Cynthia Boruchowicz & Florencia Lopez Boo & Joaquin Navajas, 2021. "The interplay between partisanship, forecasted COVID-19 deaths, and support for preventive policies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Chih-Hsing Liu & Quoc Phong La & Yen-Ling Ng & Rullyana Puspitaningrum Mamengko, 2023. "Discovering the Sustainable Innovation Service Process of Organizational Environment, Information Sharing and Satisfaction: The Moderating Roles of Pressure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-26, July.
    4. Margherita, Alessandro & Elia, Gianluca & Klein, Mark, 2021. "Managing the COVID-19 emergency: A coordination framework to enhance response practices and actions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    5. Xosé López-García & Carmen Costa-Sánchez & Ángel Vizoso, 2021. "Journalistic Fact-Checking of Information in Pandemic: Stakeholders, Hoaxes, and Strategies to Fight Disinformation during the COVID-19 Crisis in Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-15, January.
    6. Ruixia Han & Jian Xu & David Pan, 2022. "How Media Exposure, Media Trust, and Media Bias Perception Influence Public Evaluation of COVID-19 Pandemic in International Metropolises," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-14, March.
    7. Grzegorz Drozdowski & Joanna Rogozińska-Mitrut & Jacek Stasiak, 2021. "The Empirical Analysis of the Core Competencies of the Company’s Resource Management Risk. Preliminary Study," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-12, June.
    8. Lei Jiang & Yujia Huang & Haonan Cheng & Ting Zhang & Lei Huang, 2021. "Emergency Response and Risk Communication Effects of Local Media during COVID-19 Pandemic in China: A Study Based on a Social Media Network," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-16, October.
    9. Nguyen Xuan Truong & Bui Hoang Ngoc & Nguyen Thai Ha, 2022. "The Impacts of Media Exposure on COVID-19 Preventive Behaviors Among Vietnamese People: Evidence Using Expanded Protection Motivation Theory," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, May.
    10. Paolo Contini & Santo Di Nuovo & Maria Sinatra & Elisabeta Osmanaj & Lucia Monacis, 2022. "Investigating the Buffering Effects of Greenery on the Adverse Emotional, Mental and Behavioral Health during the Pandemic Period," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-13, July.
    11. Saleh Al-Omoush, Khaled & Orero-Blat, Maria & Ribeiro-Soriano, Domingo, 2021. "The role of sense of community in harnessing the wisdom of crowds and creating collaborative knowledge during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 765-774.
    12. Verma, Surabhi & Gustafsson, Anders, 2020. "Investigating the emerging COVID-19 research trends in the field of business and management: A bibliometric analysis approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 253-261.
    13. Gisela Redondo-Sama & Teresa Morlà-Folch & Ana Burgués & Jelen Amador & Sveva Magaraggia, 2021. "Create Solidarity Networks: Dialogs in Reddit to Overcome Depression and Suicidal Ideation among Males," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-15, November.
    14. Jack P Hughes & Alexandros Efstratiou & Sara R Komer & Lilli A Baxter & Milica Vasiljevic & Ana C Leite, 2022. "The impact of risk perceptions and belief in conspiracy theories on COVID-19 pandemic-related behaviours," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-20, February.
    15. Mohamed Ali Hammami & Maher Guerchi & Okba Selmi & Faten Sehli & Hatem Ghouili & Oana Ancuța Stângaciu & Marius Alin Marinău & Ovidiu Galeru & Dan Iulian Alexe, 2023. "Effect of Verbal Encouragement on Physical Fitness, Technical Skill and Physiological Response during Small-Sided Soccer Games," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-12, February.
    16. Beniamino Schiavone & Andrea Vitale & Mena Gallo & Gianlucasalvatore Russo & Domenico Ponticelli & Mario Borrelli, 2021. "Overview of Facebook Use by Hospitals in Italy: A Nationwide Survey during the COVID-19 Emergency," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-17, July.
    17. Nan, Xiaoli & Wang, Yuan & Thier, Kathryn, 2022. "Why do people believe health misinformation and who is at risk? A systematic review of individual differences in susceptibility to health misinformation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    18. Ruoheng Liu & Yi-Hui Christine Huang & Jie Sun & Jennifer Lau & Qinxian Cai, 2022. "A Shot in the Arm for Vaccination Intention: The Media and the Health Belief Model in Three Chinese Societies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-17, March.
    19. Zhao, Xiaoquan & Horoszko, Urszula A. & Murphy, Amy & Taylor, Bruce G. & Lamuda, Phoebe A. & Pollack, Harold A. & Schneider, John A. & Taxman, Faye S., 2023. "Openness to change among COVID misinformation endorsers: Associations with social demographic characteristics and information source usage," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).
    20. Hyehyun Hong & Hyo Jung Kim, 2020. "Antecedents and Consequences of Information Overload in the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-15, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:24:p:12986-:d:698413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.