As cynicism toward news outlets continues to grow, Tamar Wilner, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Kansas, recently authored a study examining how cynicism affects people’s susceptibility to misinformation.
She gauged participants’ levels of news literacy by asking questions about journalists’ qualifications, algorithms and how popular browsers source information.
Wilner's study found that some skepticism is healthy. However, when questioning turns into automatic distrust, news consumers can become cynical, which actually makes them more vulnerable to misinformation.
“There seems to be a general approach to what people consume in the media, where there is a lack of institutional trust. They just don't believe the media is serving their interests, or could possibly provide them with information they believe or find useful,” Wilner told KCUR’s Up to Date. “This undermines the possibility of believing in anything trustworthy that perhaps should be believed.”
Wilner said it is important to maintain some level of skepticism because even the highest-quality news outlets make mistakes. With more people turning to social media as a trusted source for news, Wilner encourages lateral reading — looking up a source to learn how it operates and what its motives may be.
The study was co-written with Gyo Hyun Koo of Howard University and Cameron McCann of the University of Texas, and published in the journal "Mass Communications and Society."
- Tamar Wilner, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at the University of Kansas
