Can we trust measures of trust? a comparison of results from open and closed questions.

Many public opinion surveys compare trust in a number of different information and (mediated) knowledge sources, typically using closed questions with a set of answer categories that are imposed by researchers. We aim to validate these categories by quantitatively comparing survey responses about trustworthy sources using open and closed questions, and by qualitatively analyzing the open answers. The results show that answer options typically used for closed questions in academic research are generally valid and closely match categories that respondents come up with unprimed.

Trust in the European Union: Effects of the information environment.

Over the past decade, the European Union has lost the trust of many citizens. This article investigates whether and how media information, in particular visibility and tonality, impact trust in the European Union among citizens. Combining content analysis and Eurobarometer survey data from 10 countries between 2004 and 2015, we study both direct and moderating media effects.

Liberals lecture, conservatives communicate: Analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 political speeches.

There is some evidence that liberal politicians use more complex language than conservative politicians. This evidence, however, is based on a specific set of speeches of US members of Congress and UK members of Parliament. This raises the question whether the relationship between ideology and linguistic complexity is a more general phenomenon or specific to this small group of politicians.

Dutch health websites and their ability to inform people with low health literacy.

Objective: To evaluate whether Dutch online health information (OHI) generally reflects message elements that support information processing and understanding among people with low health literacy.

Methods: We content-analyzed one hundred Dutch webpages about Ebola, fibromyalgia, ALS, losing weight, borderline personality disorder, hemorrhoids, ADD, bladder infection, shingles, and chicken pox. The codebook covered the following domains: images and videos, readability level, Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM), advertising, interactive features, and reliability cues.