Why Are Scientific Experts Perceived as Trustworthy? Emotional Assessment within TV and YouTube Videos

Anne Reif, Tim Kneisel, Markus Schäfer and Monika Taddicken
Additional contact information
Anne Reif: Department of Communication and Media Sciences, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
Tim Kneisel: Department of Communication and Media Sciences, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
Markus Schäfer: Department of Communication and Media Sciences, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
Monika Taddicken: Department of Communication and Media Sciences, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany

Media and Communication, 2020, vol. 8, issue 1, 191-205

Abstract: Due to the rise of the Internet, the effects of different science communication formats in which experts appear cannot be neglected in communication research. Through their emotional and more comprehensible communication ‘sciencetubers’—who frequently differ from the stereotypical image of scientists as white, old men—may have a considerable effect on the public’s perceived trustworthiness of scientists as well as their trust in science. Thus, this study aims to extend trust and trustworthiness research to consider the role of emotion in science communication in the context of emerging online video content. Therefore, perceived trustworthiness was examined in an experimental online survey of 155 people aged 18–80. We considered different potential influencing variables for trustworthiness (expertise, integrity, benevolence) and used six different video stimuli about physics featuring scientific experts. The video stimuli varied according to format (TV interviews vs. YouTube videos), gender (male vs. female), and age of the experts depicted (old vs. young). The results suggest that: (1) Scientific experts appearing in TV interviews are perceived as more competent but not higher in integrity or benevolence than sciencetubers—while scientists interviewed on TV are regarded as typical scientists, sciencetubers stand out for their highly professional communication abilities (being entertaining and comprehensible); (2) these emotional assessments of scientists are important predictors of perceived trustworthiness; and (3) significantly mediate the effect of the stimulus (TV interview vs. YouTube video) on all dimensions of perceived trustworthiness of scientific experts.

Keywords: entertainment; public trust; science communication; science video; stereotype; television; trustworthiness; YouTube (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/2536 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v8:y:2020:i:1:p:191-205

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v8i1.2536

Access Statistics for this article

Media and Communication is currently edited by Raquel Silva

More articles in Media and Communication from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().