Trust in the News in Rural America

• In Event: The Drivers and Variations of Media Trust and Distrust

Abstract

Trust has seen a resurgence of scholarly interest, especially in light of the COVID pandemic. Scholars have examined in detail the role of trust in science and scientists in health attitudes and behaviors like vaccine uptake, as well as the role of trust in the news in information seeking and processing of citizens. Trust in the news itself has been the focus of extended scholarly inquiry, as it has declined dramatically among Americans since the 1970’s, and particularly on the political right (Ladd, 2011). Yet, little to no attention has been paid to trust in the news among rural Americans and rural identifiers specifically.

We think that this is an important omission, because rural America isn’t just a geographic distinction, it is an important source of identity with political implications. Extant research on the topic has found heightened support across the US for right-wing populist attitudes and candidates among rural residents, especially among those who strongly identify as being a rural person (Cramer 2016; Johnson and Scala 2022; Lunz Trujillo 2022; Lyons and Utych 2022). Yet, little is known on how and why rural Americans across disparate geographic locations hold similar political tendencies. Researchers speculate that this may have to do with shared informational tendencies among rural individuals (Cramer 2016; Lunz Trujillo 2021).

We postulate that the information ecosystems in rural America are different than those of suburban and urban America. Specifically, according to the Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, about a quarter of all news outlets in the United States have closed since 2005, many in rural America, resulting in “news deserts,” or communities which have no sources of local news (Milbank, 2023). As a result, many Americans with strong place-based attachments don’t have any dependable sources of information to rely on, and this may be causing varied information environments across the urban-rural spectrum where rural America is less informed and more apt to rely on less credible forms of news.

In this paper, we seek to fill this gap by examining patterns of trust in the news and news consumption among rural Americans. We utilize a variety of data sets, including survey datasets on tens of thousands of Americans, as well as UNC's The Expanding News Desert Dataset, to evaluate whether unique patterns of news consumption (or lack thereof) exist in rural America and among rural identifiers compared to non-rural America, above and beyond partisanship and other related factors. We then evaluate whether and how these patterns translate into varied support for populist tendencies, vote choice, and other established urban-rural differences in political opinions.

Authors

• Dominik Andrzej Stecula, The Ohio State University

• Kristin Kay Lunz Trujillo, University of South Carolina