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This study explores the role of news skepticism in countering misinformation beliefs and skepticism’s connection to greater news literacy. We specifically test two types of misinformation: political and COVID-19. Using an online survey (N = 1,003), we establish that news skepticism, news cynicism, and news trust are separate constructs. We then test the role of these constructs in shaping misinformation beliefs and their linkage to news literacy, as measured by news knowledge. Our findings show that people with greater news knowledge tend to have greater news skepticism but lower news cynicism. While people with greater news cynicism are more likely to believe in misinformation, there was no significant relationship between news skepticism and misinformation beliefs. These results suggest that efforts to reduce news cynicism may be an effective strategy in combating misinformation.
Koo et al. (Thu,) studied this question.