A Study Of Media Trust From The Perspective Of Audience

Media trust is currently a hot topic of research,but the comparison of media trust between self-media and mainstream media has rarely been discussed.To further enrich the research content in this field,the study focuses on media trust from the audience’s perspective and takes the case of "28 years of wrong life",a typical online hot news event,as a starting point to examine the differences and similarities of media trust level and media trust influencing factors between mainstream media and self-media.By combing the media trust scales designed by domestic scholars and combining the characteristics of the current media environment,the study designed a new media trust measurement scale based on two dimensions: professionalism and social care.Through the questionnaire,the study found that both mainstream media and self-media are at a medium trust level,but the media trust level of mainstream media scores higher in comparison.By coding the in-depth interview texts at three levels with the help of rooting theory,two core explanatory categories of "rational factors" and "irrational factors" were extracted,and a model of media trust influencing factors was constructed.For mainstream media,the rational factors influencing their trust include industry authority,media professionalism and content authenticity,while the irrational factors influencing their trust include audience word-of-mouth and public response.For self-media,individual identity,content quality and interest relationship are rational factors influencing media trust,and audience personal experience and audience perception are irrational factors influencing media trust.On this basis,targeted common and individual suggestions are given on how to improve the level of media trust in the future.This study achieves some innovations in research methods,specifically,the study not only designs a new media trust measurement scale based on sorting out the existing scales,but also tries to apply the rooted theory analysis method to media trust research,which has theoretical and practical significance.