A comparative study on source credibility and use in multinational nuclear talks

Abstract

This study examines US and South Korean journalists’ use of sources and their perceptions of source credibility in covering the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. In particular, this study analyzes the relationship between journalists’ perceptions of source credibility and the media’s source use in terms of the aggregate and individual levels. Results of content analysis of US and South Korean newspapers are compared with data from a survey of US and South Korean journalists who covered the six-party nuclear talks. Government officials are dominant sources in media coverage of the talks because of their high level of accessibility and credibility. US and South Korean journalists assigned the greatest credibility to government officials of their own country. The two groups showed significant differences in their perceptions of credibility of South Korean officials, North Korean officials, Japanese officials, and Japanese experts. Moreover, this study finds that individual journalists’ perceptions of source credibility were as strongly correlated with their individual use of sources as with the news media’s aggregate use of sources. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of media sociology, in particular gatekeeping.