Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu, of Universidad de La Laguna, Catherine M. Hooker, University of Vienna, and  Homero Gil de Zúñiga, of University of Vienna and Universidad Diego Portales. study the relationship between media trust and citizen news production and examine whether media trust moderates the effects of news production on participation.

The research is based on two-wave panel survey data collected in the United States.

The results show that sociopolitical antecedents and demographics are the most important blocks predicting citizen news creation. News creation predicts both offline and online political participation.

The authors found that trust in both traditional and citizen news media moderate the relationship between news creation and political participation online. Trust in traditional media diminishes the relationship between news creation and online political participation, the authors write. Those who show lower levels of trust in traditional media tend to participate more.

The article “Online news creation, trust in the media, and political participation: Direct and moderating effects over time” was published by Journalism. It can be found here.

Picture: Falling down from stage by raphaelstrada, licence: CC BY 2.0