Mediating trust in content about science: Assessing trust cues in digital media environments

Intermediaries such as (digital) media use trust cues in their content, that is, information and linguistic markers that present public audiences reasons for trusting scientists, scientific organizations, and the science system. Trust cues refer to dimensions of trust in science such as expertise, integrity, benevolence, transparency, and dialogue. Because digital media environments are expected to be heterogeneous in content, the sources of trust cues, characteristics of objects of trust in science (e.g. the gender of scientists), and their impact on public trust in science may vary. In our quantitative content analysis, we identified trust cues across several sources of scientific information (n = 906) and examined their heterogeneity in digital media environments. Our results reveal journalism as the most important source for trust cues and that scientists are the most prevalent object of trust—with female scientists being underrepresented. Differences across (digital) media imply varying impacts on public trust in science.