What Predicts News Discernment? Examining News Skepticism, Literacy, Cynicism, and Nihilism

Authors have suggested that news skepticism—a questioning approach to the news—may make people better at discernment, while cynical and nihilistic approaches to the news could inhibit discernment. Studies also suggest news literacy can help make people better at discerning the veracity of online content, but have not established how such education might work toward that aim. To explore these ideas, this paper takes a two-study approach. First, it employed a survey of U.S. adults (N = 301), which found that news literacy knowledge and, to a lesser extent, news skepticism, positively predicted news discernment. Nihilism negatively predicted discernment, but cynicism did not. To explore these associations, the second study used 18 semi-structured interviews to examine audience members’ experience of and understanding of news skepticism and nihilism. The interviews suggested that skepticism can indeed be associated with both poor and good discernment, and skepticism may not be an unqualified good. The interviews further supported the idea that news literacy instructors might seek a skeptical equilibrium that sits at the ideal point between unquestioning acceptance and nihilistic rejection. The paper offers suggestions for six mental qualities that might help foster skeptical equilibrium, and should be the subject of further investigation.