Factual, sceptical, or beyond journalism? Epistemological discourses in media users’ perceptions of COVID-19 news

Abstract

This study examines how individuals evaluate the legitimacy of knowledge in the context of journalism’s crisis communication. Based on an exploratory sample, we analyse epistemological discourses constructed in Finnish media users’ reflections on their engagement with and interpretation of COVID-19-related news and information. To examine these discourses, which we understand as encompassing both epistemological perceptions of reliability and authority, and as building blocks of collective identities, we conducted and analysed 14 semi-structured qualitative interviews with purposively selected media users. We identified three discourses. The first two are i) Journalistic knowledge is sufficiently reliable and ii) Journalistic knowledge is just one side of the story. These are micro-level discourses, i.e. participants’ individual perceptions of information and news on the COVID-19 pandemic. The third discourse is iii) Reliable knowledge existing beyond journalism. This meso-level discourse refers to participants’ observations of other discourses within their social and local communities. This study demonstrates the complex epistemological assumptions that inform understandings of reliable knowledge in the context of journalism, including media users’ divergent perceptions of scientific knowledge. Our findings show that struggles over knowledge are shaped both by the ideological advocacies on which they draw and by the collective identities constructed within epistemological discourses.