What used to be a strong trust in media has turned into a strong distrust in media throughout various audiences for better or for worse. Pablo Boczkowski, a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, explains how interesting this change has been and what will needed to be done by journalists moving forward.
Interestingly, Pablo uses 4 words to describe audiences nowadays, tribal, expressive, emotional, and skeptical. According to Pablo, audiences are "...anchored in the affirmation of a particular set of traits and/or issues." This statement speaks 1,000 words because not only do people get curious about certain issues but also get attached to the issue. This then leads into the other 3 aspects of audiences. Pablo describes expressive as meaning audiences are only attached issues that affect them. In addition, he states emotion plays a big part into how audiences respond to news. What's also really important is the skepticism audiences show toward news outlets. Pablo notes at this when he points out how hard it is to earn trust from audiences but also how easy it is to lose it.
In this article, Pablo guides the reader along a path to adapt journalism for these audiences. Among the many solutions, he proposes that news outlets enable the audiences to lead the journalism. I truly believe this could be a nice adaptation to help gain the trust of the audience again.
For more info on this interesting topic: https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/12/audiences-have-revolted-will-newsrooms-adapt/
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