The study of current media trust phenomena in post-industrial societies has to reflect the changes in media frameworks from digitalization. I define these changes as a transition from 'low to high choice media environments”. An increasing offer of information makes it easier for recipients to adapt their media usage to individual preferences. As a result, media trust has to be understood against the background of interconnected media differentiation and audience differentiation processes. Given these transformations, it cannot be taken for granted that media trust theories developed for mass communication are still valid in “high choice media environments”.
This leads to the following research question: Can the conceptual challenges to media trust research in “high choice media environments” be adequately addressed and answered by communication science approaches to media trust and what theoretical extensions or new approaches are needed?
To answer this question, first, I identify potential conceptual challenges from the literature review of a broader meta-theoretical discussion on the conceptual and methodological foundations of research on media effects in high choice media environments (i.e. Bennett & Iyengar, 2008; Donsbach & Mothes, 2012; Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2010; Van Aelst et al., 2017, Vowe & Henn 2016). In this regard, the most pressing conceptual challenges can be summarized as [1] the need for contextualization of media effects within [2] a more differentiated perspective on audience groups and [3] public communication more generally, [4] the increased relevance of subjective involvement with topics and media frames, hence public discourse dynamics. In a second step, I analyze existing theories of media trust in communication studies, regarding the way how these conceptual challenges are addressed and answered.
An initial literature review of two main theories of media trust in communication studies (Bentele 1994, 1998, Kohring 2004) – a selection justified by their broad application, validation and elaborated system-theoretical basis – reveals: [1] a primarily content or output focused concept of media trust, [2] audience differentiation plays no or only a secondary role, [3] the underlying notion of the public sphere is a rather homogeneous and [4] public discourse dynamics are not conceptually relevant. With social change positioned in the conceptual center of the aforementioned media trust theories, this paper suggests theoretical extensions based on the notion of social change as (Imhof, 2008; Imhof & Gaetano, 1996):
[A] an interaction of functional, stratificational and segmentational differentiation of society. Thus the formation of media trust is contextualized by one's position in society. This leads to a heterogeneous understanding of media trust.
[B] different periods of active and passive publics. In times of active publics, reflexive media trust judgments of involved social groups relate to a conflict over the definition of a societal problem between a hegemonic center and certain alternative publics.
To conclude, these theoretical extensions take into account the multidimensional nature of media trust and provide the conceptual connection to more recent approaches of digitalized public spheres like dissonant and disconnected, affective or multiple public spheres.