Anonymous sources hurt credibility of news stories across cultures: A comparative experiment in America and China

Abstract

This cross-cultural experiment (N = 620) tested the impact of the use of anonymous sources on perceived news story credibility in America and China, two countries with assumed different journalistic standards. Both Americans and Chinese rated news stories with only anonymous sources as less credible than stories with identified sources. The attitude of Americans towards news stories was found to be more positive. The study represents the first comparative research on the topic with rigorously established cross-cultural equivalences.

Keywords

America anonymous sources China cross-cultural communication news credibility

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