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Abstract
Fierce competition on the Web, increased commercialization and a turbulent economic environment may prompt media organizations to violate journalistic quality norms in order to remain competitive. Media users or recipients are then more likely to be confronted with factually inaccurate, incomplete or biased news. One would hope that at least some recipients prefer high-quality media over low-quality media and this preference will counteract pressures on media organizations to downgrade their product. But this hope is based on the assumption that recipients can evaluate the quality of news appropriately. Communication scholars, however, typically argue that recipients are unable to judge media with regard to these normative quality criteria since they lack the appropriate background and professional knowledge to make such judgements. This study investigates how far this is true. A series of 2 × 2 factorial online experiments test whether recipients of news recognize the quality of news items measured by the criteria of diversity, relevance, ethics, impartiality, objectivity and comprehensibility. Results indicate that recipients do recognize differences in quality to some extent where they reflect issues of relevance, impartiality and diversity. But recipients found it hard to evaluate the ethics, objectivity and comprehensibility of a news item. Furthermore, media brand images proved to be an important heuristic when recipients have to evaluate news quality. The results show that it is difficult for recipients to judge news coverage with regard to identified normative quality criteria. However, the audience is by no means completely unable to identify a lack of quality in the news.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors appreciate the feedback given on the manuscript from the reviewers and editors.
FUNDING
This work was supported by the German Research Foundation [SCHW 1172/5-1].
Notes
1. Following the tripartite model, attitudes consist of three dimensions: the cognitive, affective and behavioural dimension (e.g. Olson and Kendrick Citation2008). However, the model is often criticized for obscuring the relation between attitude and behaviour (Chaiken and Stangor Citation1987, 577–578.). This is why we are going to exclude the behavioural dimension from the following deliberations and regard attitudes as a two-dimensional construct.
2. The role of motivation/willingness to evaluate news items systematically and carefully could not be analysed in this paper because of space limits. However, in line with the mentioned theories we would assume a stronger impact of attitudes towards a media brand in the evaluation process when a recipient is not willing to study a news item carefully.
3. Basic information on the image of both media can be found in YouGov (Citation2009). The participants' attitudes towards both brands were measured by a 14-piece semantic differential (see Procedure). t-Tests revealed that Sueddeutsche Zeitung as a brand achieved more positive ratings than Bild-Zeitung in all dimensions (p < 0.05).
4. In this second wave, additional variables were measured, but they are outside the scope of this paper.
5. A correct quality judgement was coded when participants' overall quality dimension rating for the high-quality article was 3.51–5.00, or 1.00–2.49 for the low-quality article. An incorrect quality judgement was coded when participants' overall quality dimension rating for the high-quality article was 1.00–2.49, or 3.51–5.00 for the low-quality article.