Can we trust measures of trust? Measurement invariance in trust in EU news media

Eliyahu V. Sapir1
1Department of Political Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands

Tóm tắt

Trust in the news media received wide scholarly attention for almost a century, which was further boosted as a result of recent developments in the media landscape and changes in how news is made and consumed. Despite that, the conceptualization of trust in the news media is still debated, and its measurement comparability has not yet been established. In this paper, I build up on earlier conceptualizations of trust in the news media, and test three theoretically derived measurement models to determine their cross-cultural equivalence in 28 EU countries. Using Eurobarometer data, I test the validity and comparability of these measurements employing multi-group confirmatory factor analysis. The findings indicate that trust is a unidimensional latent construct, equally interpreted across contexts. People's level of trust in the news media reflects their general attitude to the news stories and reporters in all sources of media they are exposed to. While bifactorial measurements of news media trust, differentiating between legacy and online sources, have some merit in single case-studies, they are non-invariant and therefore non comparable. This means that any cross-population differences found employing them are likely a function of measurement idiosyncrasies or other unknown factors.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Almond G, Verba S (1963) The civic culture Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Sage, London.

Appelman A, Sundar SS (2016) Measuring message credibility: construction and validation of an exclusive scale. J Mass Commun Q 93(1):59–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699015606057

Arnett CE, Davidson HH, Lewis HN (1931) Prestige as a factor in attitude change. Sociol Soc Res 16:49–55

Barber B (1983) The logic and limits of trust. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

Bauer PC (2021) Clearing the jungle: conceptualising trust and trustworthiness. In: Freitas RBD, Iacono SL (eds) Trust matters: cross-disciplinary essays. Bloomsbury, London, pp 17–34

Bentler PM (1990) Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychol Bull 107(2):238–246. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.107.2.238

Bogaerts J, Carpentier N (2013) The postmodern challenge to journalism: strategies for constructing a trustworthy identify. In: Peters C, Broersma M (eds) Rethinking journalism: trust and participation in a transformed news landscape. Routledge, New York, pp 60–71

Bollen KA (1989) Confirmatory factor analysis. In: Bollen KA (ed) Structural equations with latent variables. Wiley, New York, pp 226–318

Brown TA (2015) Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research. The Guilford Press, New York

Byrne BM, Shavelson RJ, Muthén B (1989) Testing for the equivalence of factor covariance and mean structures: the issue of partial measurement invariance. Psychol Bull 105(3):456–466. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.105.3.456

Carr DJ, Barnidge M, Lee BG, Tsang SJ (2014) Cynics and skeptics: evaluating the credibility of mainstream and citizen journalism. J Mass Commun Q 91(3):452–470. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699014538828

Chen FF (2007) Sensitivity of goodness of fit indexes to lack of measurement invariance. Struct Equ Model 14(3):464–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705510701301834

Coleman S (2012) Believing the news: from sinking trust to atrophied efficacy. Eur J Commun 27(1):35–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323112438806

Davidov E, Meuleman B, Cieciuch J, Schmidt P, Billiet J (2014) Measurement equivalence in cross-national research. Ann Rev Sociol 40:55–75. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043137

Delhey J, Newton K (2003) Who trusts? The origins of social trust in seven societies. Eur Soc 5(2):93–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461669032000072256

Easton D (1975) A re-assessment of the concept of political support. Br J P Sci 5:435–457. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123400008309

European Commission, Brussels (2018). Flash Eurobarometer 464 (Fake News and Disinformation Online). GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13019

Exoo CF (2009) The pen and the sword: press, war, and terror in the 21st century. Sage, London

Fisher C (2018) What is meant by ‘trust’ in news media? In: Otto K, Köhler A (eds) Trust in media and journalism: empirical perspectives on ethics, norms, impacts and populism in Europe. Springer, Wiesbaden, pp 19–38

Fletcher R, Park S (2017) The impact of trust in the news media on online news consumption and participation. Digit J 5(10):1281–1299. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1279979

Hanitzsch T, Van Dalen A, Steindl N (2018) Caught in the nexus: a comparative and longitudinal analysis of public trust in the press. Int J Press/poli 23(1):3–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161217740695

Hooghe M (2011) Why there is basically only one form of political trust? Br J Pol Int Relat 13:269–275. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00447.x

Hovland CI, Janis IL, Kelley HH (1953) Communication and persuasion. Yale University Press, New-Haven

Hu L-t, Bentler PM (1998) Fit indices in covariance structure modeling: sensitivity to underparameterized model misspecification. Psychol Methods 3(4):424–453. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.3.4.424

Hu L-t, Bentler PM (1999) Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Struct Equ Model 6(1):1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118

Jöreskog KG (1971) Simultaneous factor analysis in several populations. Psychometrika 36(4):409–426. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02291366

Jöreskog KG, Sörbom D (1996) LISREL8: user’s reference guide. Scientific Software, Mooresville

Kalogeropoulos A, Suiter J, Udris L, Eisenegger M (2019) News media trust and news consumption: factors related to trust in news in 35 countries. Int J Commun 13:3672–3693. https://doi.org/10.5167/UZH-175863

Kiousis S (2001) Public trust or mistrust? Perceptions of media credibility in the information age. Mass Commun Soc 4(4):381–403. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327825MCS0404_4

Klingemann HD, Fuchs D (1995) Citizens and the state. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Kohring M, Matthes J (2007) Trust in news media: development and validation of a multidimensional scale. Commun Res 34(2):231–252. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650206298071

Ladd JM (2012) Why Americans hate the media and why it matters. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Ladd JM, Podkul AR (2019) Sowing distrust of the news media as an electoral strategy. In: Grofman B, Suhay L, Trechsel A (eds) The Oxford handbook of electoral persuasion. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 427–454

Marsh HW, Guo J, Parker PD, Nagengast B, Asparouhov T, Muthén B, Dicke T (2018) What to do when scalar invariance fails: the extended alignment method for multi-group factor analysis comparison of latent means across many groups. Psychol Methods 23(3):524–545. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000113

Mayer RC, Davis JH, Schoorman FD (1995) An integrative model of organizational trust. Acad Manag Rev 20(3):709–734. https://doi.org/10.2307/258792

McCroskey JC, Mehrley RS (1969) The effects of disorganization and nonfluency on attitude change and source credibility. Speech Monogr 36(1):13–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637756909375604

Medina TR, Smith SN, Long JS (2009) Measurement models matter: implicit assumptions and cross-national research. Int J Public Opi Res 21:333–361. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edp037

Meredith W (1993) Measurement invariance, factor analysis, and factorial invariance. Psychometrika 58:525–543. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02294825

Metzger MJ, Flanagin AJ, Eyal K, Lemus DR, Mccann RM (2003) Credibility for the 21st century: integrating perspectives on source, message, and media credibility in the contemporary media environment. Ann Int Commun Assoc 27(1):293–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2003.11679029

Newhagen J, Nass C (1989) Differential criteria for evaluating credibility of newspapers and TV news. J Q 66(2):277–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769908906600202

Newman N, Fletcher R, Kalogeropoulos A, Levy DAL, Nielsen RK (2018) Reuters Institute digital news report 2018. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford

Norris P (1999) Critical citizens: Global support for democratic government. Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/0198295685.001.0001

Roper BW (1969) A ten-year view of public attitudes toward television and other mass media, 1959–1968. Television Information Office, New York

Self CC, Roberts CR (2019) Credibility. In: Stacks D, Salwen MB, Eichhorn KC (eds) An integrated approach to communication theory and research. Routledge, New York, pp 435–446

Steinmetz H, Schmidt P, Tina-Booh A, Wieczorek S, Schwartz SH (2009) Testing measurement invariance using multigroup CFA: differences between educational groups in human values measurement. Qual Quant 43(4):599–616. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-007-9143-x

Strömbäck J, Tsfati Y, Boomgaarden H, Damstra A, Lindgren E, Vliegenthart R, Lindholm T (2020) News media trust and its impact on media use: toward a framework for future research. Ann Int Commun Assoc 44(2):139–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2020.1755338

Tsfati Y, Cappella J (2003) Do people watch what they do not trust? Exploring the association between news media skepticism and exposure. Commun Res 30(5):504–529. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650203253371

Tsfati Y, Cohen J (2005) Democratic consequences of hostile media perceptions the case of Gaza settlers. Harvard Int J Press/pol 10(4):28–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1081180X05280776

Vandenberg RJ, Lance CE (2000) A review and synthesis of the measurement invariance literature: suggestions, practices, and recommendations for organizational research. Organ Res Methods 3(1):4–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/109442810031002

Wu H, Estabrook R (2016) Identification of confirmatory factor analysis models of different levels of invariance for ordered categorical outcomes. Psychometrika 81(4):1014–1045. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11336-016-9506-0

Yamagishi T, Yamagishi M (1994) Trust and commitment in the United States and Japan. Motiv Emot 18(2):129–166. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02249397