Abstract:
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In today’s post-truth world, news users grapple with the tension between growing distrust in news institutions and the need for “true” information. Based on a mixed-methods study conducted in Turkey, this paper examines strategies developed by news users to establish trust in media tools in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and populist polarization. We first collected data with a nationally representative survey (N = 1089). Then, 30 media users filled out media diaries for 1 week. We interviewed diary participants at the end of the week. We also conducted a four-week-long participant observation in three locations. Based on this data, we argue that users build trust in news stories by attributing a sense of immediacy to specific media, namely television and search engines. This immediacy arises from people’s desire to scrutinize the accuracy of news stories in Turkey’s highly polarized media environment. We term this ascribed meaning of transparency the imagined affordance of immediacy, asserting that immediacy is crucial for forming trust in the post-truth era. Contrary to suggestions that news trust is diminishing in the post-truth era, our paper highlights citizens’ creative strategies to reestablish trust in contemporary news media.