As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes both a topic of news coverage and a force shaping the information environment, citizens must make sense of AI-related issues while evaluating machine-generated content, journalistic coverage, and institutional actors. This study applies the Orientation-Stimulus-Reasoning-Orientation-Response framework to examine how AI-related news consumption is associated with interpersonal discussion, multifaceted trust, and AI-related offline civic participation. Using two-wave panel data from U.S. adults (Wave 1 = 2,010; Wave 2 = 942), the study models AI-related news consumption across television, newspapers, online news sites, and social media as the stimulus; AI-related online and offline discussion as reasoning; trust in AI-generated news, legacy media coverage of AI, and AI-related institutional actors as reorientation; and AI-related offline civic participation as the response. Results reveal a selective communication pathway. Newspaper and social media AI news use were the most consistent predictors of AI-related discussion. Online discussion was associated with later trust in AI-generated news and legacy media coverage of AI, and trust in AI-generated news and AI-related institutional actors was associated with later offline participation. The observed indirect pathways operated through online discussion and trust in AI-generated news. These findings refine communication mediation research by showing that public engagement with AI-related issues depends on where people encounter AI news, how they discuss it, and which sources and institutions they come to trust.
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Nah et al. (2026) studied this question.
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