SOCIAL MEDIA VS. MAINSTREAM MEDIA: A STUDY OF PUBLIC TRUST AND PERCEIVED CREDIBILITY IN NEWS SOURCES

Abstract

The contemporary media ecosystem presents a paradox: audiences have unprecedented access to information, yet public trust in the institutions and platforms delivering it is at a historic low. This study investigates the widening credibility gap between mainstream media (television and print) and social media within the transitional media landscape of Pakistan. Using a qualitative design anchored in Hovland, Janis, and Kelley's (1953) Source Credibility Theory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 20 stakeholders (n = 20), comprising media policy experts, legacy journalists, media scholars, and active digital news consumers. Data was analyzed using Braun and Clarke's (2006) Thematic Analysis. Findings reveal a profound dual trust deficit: mainstream media suffers from eroded institutional authority due to perceived state censorship, corporate ownership, and political infotainment, while social media, though valued for speed and unfiltered perspectives, induces deep epistemic anxiety from algorithmic manipulation and misinformation. Crucially, digital audiences have redefined classical credibility metrics: institutional expertise is replaced by networked "authenticity," and "trustworthiness" is transferred through secondary gatekeepers (trusted peers and family) within digital and dark social networks such as WhatsApp. Four themes emerged: the speed-accuracy trade-off, institutional bias and political economy, algorithmic anxiety, and social heuristics via secondary gatekeepers. These directly answer the study's questions on how stakeholders define credibility and why audiences prefer one medium over another. The study concludes that media credibility is no longer a static institutional output but a volatile, user-constructed negotiation. It recommends that legacy media pivot toward rigorous fact-checking and editorial transparency, while digital platforms enhance algorithmic accountability and verification markers, offering a Global South perspective to enrich predominantly Western-centric media trust scholarship.