News sources and the audience: developing a psychological ...



News sources and the audience: developing a psychological approach to source attributions

Jamie Matthews (Media school, Bournemouth University)

To allow news consumers to assess the accuracy and objectivity of their reports, journalists will, whenever possible, attribute a story or information to a source. Textbooks state that the fundamental rule of sourcing is that to appear in print a fact needs to be confirmed by two reliable and independent sources (Bickler 2004). While the reality may be somewhat different from this ideal they do, however, remain an important tool for news sources. Citing a source’s name, status of organisational affiliation empowers the audience by allowing the reader or viewer to assess the credibility and veracity of a news narrative.

Previous research exploring the interaction between sources and news agendas has found that official sources who are representatives of institutions that traditionally wield power in society (the government, the police and spokespersons for large corporations) are more routinely cited within news reports (Miller 1993). Yet, in recent times we have also witnessed the emergence of a less deferential public, one that is more sceptical and critical of those in positions of authority or power. Polling data shows that trust in government has declined significantly over the past twenty years to a point where, according to poll conducted by IPSOS Mori in 2001, only 43% of people trust the government to tell the truth (IPSOS Mori 2001). This contrasts significantly with attitudes towards the army (82%) and the police (65%), which retain relatively high levels of public confidence and trust.

While it could be argued that a feature of society’s increasing mistrust is the emergence of a more critical media consumer, it also raises questions about how public attitudes may influence audiences’ impressions of the news. Does scepticism and mistrust of government and politicians lead to a cynical response to news stories quoting ‘political sources?’ Conversely, how may more positive attitude towards a quoted or paraphrased source influence news consumers’ perceptions of a story or piece of information within a report?

This paper will outline an experimental method to explore these issues and to develop an approach to source attribution, which considers the relationship between news consumers’ underlying attitudes and perceptions of the news.

Sources as Peripheral Cues:

News sources have been defined as:

‘the actors who journalists observe or interview including interviewees who appear on air or who are quoted in magazine articles and those who supply background information or story suggestions’ (Gans 1979, p80).

This may be a valid definition ontologically, however, psychologically or from the audiences’ perspective: ‘the source is what the receiver imagines the source to be’ (Reeves & Nass 1996 cited in Sundar 2001, p54). Conceptualising the source of mass communication has, similarly, faced difficulties in distinguishing between the presenter and the channel. Media consumers may classify a source at an individual level, to the person or organisation that delivers a message, a journalist, television presenter or character, for example. Conversely, research has also treated the medium as the source of communication, distinguishing between the organisation, (Hovland and Weiss 1952) media channels (print or broadcast) (See Abel & Wirth 1977; Carter and Greenberg 1965) or the technology itself (McLuhan 1964). The growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web have led scholars to suggest that receivers may now also be viewed as communication sources as users manufacture and select content (Sundar 2001). The purpose of illustrating these ideas is to highlight the difficulties that audiences may face in disassociating their perceptions of news content from underlying attitudes towards the medium, the organisation, or journalist who has written or presented the story.

The evidential basis for exploring news sources is grounded in the belief that audiences actively scan and monitor source when processing pieces of news (Sundar 1998), and that source citations may act as a heuristic for news consumers when analysing the credibility or veracity of a news story.

Persuasion research has shown that our ability to process a message will be influenced by a range of situational and dispositional factors: external distraction and issue-relevant knowledge, for example (Brock and Green 2005). Those who lack the motivation or ability to devote extensive cognitive elaboration towards an issue will rely upon peripheral cues when assessing a piece of communication. These heuristics act as a powerful tool in decision-making and allow judgements to be made in the absence of systematic and elaborative processing (Chaiken 1987; Chen and Chaiken 1999; Petty and Wegner, 1999 all cited in Brock and Green 2005).

For journalists who are concerned with producing accurate and objective news reports, it is important to ascertain whether readers or viewers are influenced by their attitudes towards the organisations or individuals quoted as sources. Furthermore, the extent to which news sources may act as peripheral cues and shape audiences’ understanding and interpretation of the news.

Source variables and audience effects:

Research that has investigated how these cognitive processes may interact with the journalistic variable of source attribution has, on the whole, centred upon audiences’ impression of the quality, accuracy and credibility of news, rather than its potential to impact upon issues within the news. Culbertson and Somerick (1977) sampled twelve different newspapers, and found that about a third of all items contained unnamed sources. More significantly, they noted that an individual’s knowledge of public affairs clearly related to their understanding of attribution and led to a more favourable attitude towards unnamed sources and leaks (Culbertson and Somerick 1977). Conversely, another enquiry testing audience reactions to four different newspaper articles containing attributions to named or unnamed sources, found no statistical differences in the perceived accuracy or truthfulness of the articles (Culbertson and Somerick 1976).

Fedler and Counts (1981) investigated the use of unnamed and identified sources in shaping readers’ perceptions of a story. Constructing an experiment that consisted of four different versions of two news stories; the first, contained no attribution; however, the second contained attribution to an unidentified source; the third version was referenced to an identified source; and the fourth was attributed to an identified source but was refuted by a second, identified source. The results confirmed that the effects of story attribution depended upon the type of story. The story that was perceived as biased and less accurate, was considered less so when it quoted two opposing sources or did not mention any source. However, attribution did not significantly change perceptions towards the other less controversial story (Fedler and Counts 1981).

Another study found no differences in the believability of three versions of the same newspaper story: with specific attribution to a named source, a general attribution to the source’s title but with no further details and no reference to a source. Instead, story type appeared to be the principal factor influencing reader’s perceptions, with factual stories perceived to be more believable and accurate than commentary (Hale 1984).

Research has also investigated the influence of direct quotes and paraphrased quotes upon news audiences. Weaver (1974 cited in Sundar 1998) found no significant differences in readers’ ratings of the quality of the story, in particular, the characteristics of accuracy, believability, informativeness, interest and readability. Gibson and Zillman (1993) equally, found that direct quotations do not make reports more interesting and enjoyable for media consumers.

Three more recent studies have attempted to bridge the gap between the perceived quality of the news and audience attitudes towards issues within the news. Gibson and Zillman (1993) found that direct quotes and personal testimony make an issue seem more salient to newspaper readers. Furthermore, the persuasive influence of direct quotes has been shown to sway readers in favour of an issue when compared with news reports of an issue containing paraphrased quotes (Gibson 1997). However, both these studies found that story quality was not influenced by the presence of direct quotes over paraphrased quotes.

Experimental research has also tested the persuasive influence of the presentation and layout of newspaper articles upon news consumers. Extracted quotations that appear in larger print draw readers in to particular stories and segments of a story. Gibson et al (2001) found that, in certain circumstances, extracted quotations can increase support for the position advocated in the quote, by highlighting only one side of a two-sided issue

To summarise, print journalism has, on the whole, displayed a correlation between readers’ impressions of the news and the types of sources appearing within the text (Sundar 1998). Studies that have explored how audiences’ perception of an issue may be influenced by nuances or subtle variations in presentation have focused upon two journalistic variables: the use of direct and extracted quotes. However, two further questions arise: how may underlying attitudes towards a named source’s testimony (either direct or paraphrased) influence the perceived veracity or credibility of a story? Secondly, how may this influence attitudes and opinions towards the news and salient political issues? The key question for journalists who aim to produce accurate news stories, is how attribution to a named source may undermine audience confidence in the veracity of a report.

Overview of research design:

The following section introduces a research design that seeks to address these two broad research questions by examining how sources attributed to the police, government or security services may influence audiences’ interpretation of news reports. These sources, along with a neutral or unnamed source, will provide the four conditions for the experimental stage of the investigation. The rationale for selecting these sources is threefold. Firstly, they represent different points on the scale of public trust. Polling data shows that public confidence and trust in government and government ministers is lower compared with public trust in the police or the security/intelligence services. (IPSOS Mori 2001) Secondly, the selected sources reflect the story and the issues that will be addressed within the news report: the threat from Islamist terrorism and the proposed extension to pre-charge detention limits. While is beyond the scope of this paper to explore these issues in any depth, two features of the media and political discourse of terrorism are pertinent to a study of source attributions. First, terrorism is an important issue and demands attention for news consumers; with news of alleged terrorist activity receiving intense and at times, highly speculative media coverage. Second, the news media’s reporting of terrorism has become synonymous with unofficial sources and leaked information. Accusations have been made, particularly following news reports of an alleged kidnapping plot in January 2007, that government sources were providing detailed information to journalists concerning the police investigation. For some, these charges are cited as evidence of the social and political construction of the terrorist threat, a condition that has made a raft of legal responses politically acceptable to the electorate. (Jackson 2006; Mythen and Walklate 2006) Importantly, such claims not only contribute to mistrust and scepticism, but they create a greater awareness amongst audience of the role and the types of sources appearing in the news.

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Finally, the three named citations simulate the difficulties that news consumers may face in disambiguating source citations. A reference to ‘a security source’ is ambiguous and audiences may interpret this in any number of ways, a senior MI5 representative, a member of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre or government minister, are just three possible examples. Alternatively, a ‘police source’, while not alluding to status or seniority, fits neatly within existing knowledge constructs towards the institution and police officers as individuals.

The case for experiments:

Previous research has used an experimental method to test the effects of journalistic variables upon audience impressions of the news and to explore the relationship between political messages and public opinion (Brewer 2002; Iyengar 2006). These two approaches will be combined to test the effects of source attribution upon both perceptions of the veracity of the news and attitudes towards issues within the news.

While media scholars have criticised this positivistic approach to media effects for its simplicity and lack of external validity, it has the advantage of allowing the researcher to test causality by isolating particular variables within media or news content. In this instance, the research will explore source attribution as a nuanced element of news coverage of suspected terrorist activity upon readers’ perceptions of the veracity of news and attitudes towards pre-charge detention limits. One of the criticisms levied towards experiments is that it ignores the impact of viewers or readers interpretation of news content, in this case, the veracity of the story and the issues addressed in the article (Ward and Greenfield 1998 cited in Gunter). The proposed research, rather than seeking to test the effects of specific messages, will explore how subtleties within a message or news report may influence news consumers.

Experimental conditions:

To test these effects, two newspaper articles, detailing a fictitious terrorist plot, will be created and presented in four different versions. To ensure that the coverage is realistic and reflects previous coverage of terrorism in the UK print media, the articles will introduce a ‘low-impact’ story describing an emerging terrorist plot. The first article will reflect the style of reporting in the British tabloid/mid-market press, emphasising the modes of address, styles of language and presentation that characterise the most widely circulated titles. The second will present the story through the discourse of the three most widely circulated broadsheet titles (The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian). Both stories will be verified for authenticity by a journalist with experience of print news.

The two articles will then be edited to produce the four treatment conditions: suspected terrorist activity confirmed by two direct and one paraphrased reference to a) police sources b) government sources c) security sources d) sources—control condition. Both articles will also cite two additional sources, an ‘anti-terror source’ and a testimony from an expert commenting on terrorism to provide an accurate reflection of previous newspaper coverage of alleged terrorist activity.

Procedure:

One-hundred and twenty (60 males and 60 females) first and second year undergraduate students have been selected to take part in the experiment. Relying on a narrow sampling pool is perhaps the most widely cited criticism of experimental designs (Sears 1986 cited in Brewer 2003). However, the purpose of an experiment is to demonstrate that introducing a particular variable has had an effect upon a sample population. Since social psychological processes differ very little between a student population and a more general population, it can then be argued, that there is the potential for the effect to occur within other groups. (Sear 1986 cited in Brewer 2003)

The students will be tested in groups of 15 participants and assigned to one of the four treatment conditions. The experimental procedure will consist of three stages: a pre-test questionnaire; exposure to one of the four treatment conditions and a post-test questionnaire. First, participants will complete a questionnaire to survey media use, attitudes towards terrorism and pre-charge detention to derive baseline data for analysis. The second stage will involve participants reading a booklet containing three short newspaper pieces. The first and third articles will present the two treatment articles detailing suspected terrorist activity. A second article discussing price falls in the UK housing market is included to disguise the intended purposes of the experiment. The explanation given to participants will be that the booklet contains three recent newspaper articles reporting current news topics. The articles will be presented without reference to a particular newspaper, date or journalist, and will only contain the text of each piece. After reading the three newspaper reports the participants will then complete a post-test questionnaire that measures perceptions of the veracity and accuracy of each article and attitudes towards terrorism and pre-charge detention. The final section of the survey will reveal the aim of the study, to understand how news sources may influence our perceptions of the news, and will seek views on the trustworthiness and credibility of sources and respondents’ interpretation of different source citations.

Hypotheses and Measures:

The study seeks to understand the influence of different sources that are referenced to particular organisations or institutions upon news consumers perceptions of the news. In addition, to explore how concern about terrorism and public support for government policies may be influenced by the types of sources that appear in the news? Will there be a shift in opinion after reading news attributed to a more trusted source as these underline the credibility of the threat?

The two specific hypotheses that the study seeks to test are: a) will a named source that is referenced to an organisation or institution that benefits from higher levels of public trust lead respondents to rate the stories higher in perceived veracity and accuracy. b) will the perceived veracity of the news correlate with support for extension to pre-charge detention limits.

To determine how source citations influence news consumers’ perceptions of the news, respondents will be asked to rate each news article for its accuracy, believability and balance. Each item will be rated on a scale of one to ten to provide measured variables for analysis. The dependent variable to be measured for the second stage of analysis is respondents’ attitudes towards pre-charge detention limits. The baseline attitudes collected during the pre-test will be compared with post-exposure attitudes to measure the effect of sources upon attitudes towards terrorism and pre-charge detention limits.

Summary:

To summarise, empirical research investigating the effects of news source attribution upon the audience has explored how specific citations may influence audiences’ impression of the content. This study seeks to understand how news sources may influence perceptions of the content, the believability of a story, but more importantly, to consider how source attributions interact with the complex dynamics of public opinion.

Since accuracy and objectivity are central to maintaining trust with the reader or viewer, it is important to consider how a seemingly benign, professional decision taken by journalists, to validate information by citing a particular source, may alter audiences’ perceptions of a story and in turn, shape attitudes towards an issue or news event.

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