Believable or not?

With billions of internet users, consumption of online news sources has rapidly grown. Not only have traditional newspapers adapted to the online world, but also fake news has also become a real problem in the online world. With the availability of so many news sources, media trust has become more and more important throughout the years. In previous research, correlations between news sources and media trust have been shown. However, up until now, not much research has been done that specifically targets news sources discussing economic topics. This leaves a gap in literature between economic news sources and news trust. For this reason, the main research question of this study explores how news sources regarding economic news affect people’s trust. In this research, not only news sources, but also possible moderating factors such as prior knowledge and skepticism are taken into account and analyzed. In order to examine these effects, an experiment is conducted with two different news sources. In the experiment, participants are shown one randomized news source. The experiment consists of two news sources, one news source from The New York Times and one from Urban Economy. The New York Times includes the original content of the news article. The other news source is a nonexistent source called Urban Economy, also including the original content from The New York Times. This experiment is shared in the form of an online survey to respondents via social networks. To study the effects of the news source, prior knowledge and skepticism, a linear regression analysis and two moderation analyses are conducted. After collecting the data in SPSS, the data is computed and coded to find any correlations between the variables. Then, Chi Square tests are conducted to ensure if the relationship between the independent and dependent variables are significant. The results have shown that there is a significant relationship between news sources and news trust. There has also been a significant relationship between prior knowledge and media trust. However, the interaction between prior knowledge and news sources as well as the interaction between skepticism and news sources has no significant effect on media trust. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that there is a correlation between news sources and media trust. These findings also contribute to pre-existing literature and research regarding news sources and media trust. As a result, this creates opportunities for future research to examine if moderating factors play a significant role in the relationship between news sources and media trust. The findings also create possibilities for future studies to examine this phenomenon with non-western media.