Press Systems, Freedom of the Press and Credibility: A Comparative Analysis of Mobile News in Four Asian Cities

ABSTRACT

As mobile news goes mainstream thanks to the ubiquitous smartphones, this study assesses users’ perceptions of the credibility of news created, packaged and delivered to the mobile screen in four Asian cities: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and Taipei. Results of surveys of 2988 respondents show that respondents in Shanghai and Singapore perceived mobile news as more credible than did their counterparts in Hong Kong and Taipei. Mobile news use, news reliance, utility and appeal of mobile news were found to be significantly associated with the perceived credibility. Moreover, regression results indicate that the level of press freedom was a significant but negative predictor of perceived credibility of mobile news, after taking into consideration the influences of frequency of using mobile news, reliance on traditional and mobile media as news sources, perceived utility of mobile news, and perceived appeal of mobile news presentation. Implications of the findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Smartphones
• mobile news
• credibility
• press freedom
• press systems
• Asia

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ran Wei http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2474-5280

Edson Tandoc http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8740-9313