Exploring Audience Trust in Journalism: A Comprehensive Survey Study

Abstract

This comprehensive study explores the variables that affect media credibility and perceptions while examining the present levels of audience trust in journalism. It has never been more important to understand trust dynamics in light of growing concerns about partisanship, skewed reporting, and misinformation. We employ a mixed-methods approach in our research, mixing qualitative interviews with quantitative surveys to collect data from a wide range of participant demographics. Our objective is to determine the fundamental factors that promote trust, including accuracy, objectivity, credibility, and influence. The study also looks at the perceptions of news sources among various age groups and sociopolitical backgrounds. For this matter, 200 participants were selected on a non-random basis based in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Social Responsibility Theory was utilized to see the research study. The study explored that the usage of social media is much more than traditional media, it has also been noted that people find the news on the internet more credible. Many of the respondents feel that the influence of political interest does go into the construction of news stories, we applied chi-square to check and it has shown that the majority of them feel tremendously high. Overall, the results show that people have less trust in Pakistani media.

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