Journalistic style, fake news and media trust

Questions about what causes trust in media messages to wax or wane have become increasingly important as public concerns over fake news and post-truth discourses have become more prevalent. While we know a great deal about what causes people to trust media content, we still know little about how different journalistic styles impact such trust. Using a survey experiment fielded in Norway, Italy and Poland, exposing respondents to three different versions of a fake news story about EU politics, this article shows that tabloid news seem to engender less trust in the information than the same information presented in a less emotive style. This seems to suggest that it is not only the characteristics of the content itself that matters for the acceptance of fake news, but also how it is presented.