Unpacking Public Animosity Toward Professional Journalism: A Qualitative Analysis of the Differences Between Media Distrust and Cynicism

Abstract

Amidst a widely discussed crisis in audience-media relations, this study argues for the importance of a more nuanced understanding of audience animosity toward professional journalism. Based on 20 in-depth interviews with diverse news audiences in Serbia, we explored how media distrust and cynicism can be empirically distinguished. While both perceptions entail negative expectations from journalism, our findings indicate that they diverge with respect to interviewees’ views on journalistic ideals and integrity, differentiation between media actors, and receptivity to journalistic performance. In the interviews, cynicism emerged as the deterministic and process-oriented perception that journalism serves no other purposes than financial profit and audience manipulation. In contrast, distrust was a more nuanced, probing, and outcome-oriented perception that may be open to correction in the presence of counter-evidence. These findings can help media researchers and educators to better diagnose and address negative media perceptions.