ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Trust and the Media: Perceptions of Climate ChangeNews Sources Among US College Students

Heyi Cheng1& Jimena Gonzalez-Ramirez1

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

AbstractWith increasing fake news and polarizing politics, Americans have been exposed tofalse or misinterpreted scientific information. A disconnect between the scientificcommunity and news outlets has perpetuated public uncertainty about climate change.With the widening of such disconnect, it is crucial to understand how youth, whomainly use digital sources for information, comprehend climate change, as such ademographic will be a vehicle for climate change mitigation. We aim to understandclimate change knowledge and attitudes among college students and their trustworthi-ness of six news outlets as sources of information about climate change. Results from asurvey show that students care and are aware of climate change. Moreover, students arehesitant about news sources for climate change information. While students trust morethe New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, local news sources to the college,they overall neither trust nor distrust CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News, andBreitbart. This hesitation to trust or distrust such contrasting news regarding climatechange may be explained by the overabundance of misinformation, the usage ofcognitive heuristics, the rise of anti-intellectualism, and the lack of digital literacy,which make processing information more challenging in this postdigital era. Weconclude by emphasizing the need to develop different information literacies in highereducation. As digital platforms continue to grow, it is important to understand howyouth receive and process information about topics like climate change in a complexinformation ecosystem.

Keywords Climate change . News . Trust . College students . Digital literacy . Cognitiveheuristics

Postdigital Science and Educationhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00163-y

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00163-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Jimena Gonzalez-Ramirezjimena.gonzalez@manhattan.edu

Heyi Chenghcheng01@manhattan.edu

Extended author information available on the last page of the article

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that ‘most of theobserved increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is verylikely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’(IPCC 2007: 10). While the report was published in 2007, its findings have not fullypermeated the general public in the USA. As the political environment continues toinfluence the perception of climate change, Americans are continuously bombardedwith false or misinterpreted scientific information. For instance, fake news websitesproduce approximately one hundred articles per week, on average (Shao et al. 2018).The oversupply of information, including fake news, make the evaluation and trust ofnews sources challenging (Khan 2020). The lack of education on climate change andincreasing distrust of the news further exacerbate this issue. According to the YaleProgram on Climate Change Communication, overall public knowledge about climatechange is low (Leiserowitz Smith and Marlon 2011). From climate change deniers tochampions of the green movement, public opinion of climate change can be perceivedto be difficult to understand, leading many to believe that the majority of opinions areradical or extreme, and making people more susceptible to fragmented or false infor-mation by way of the media.

Young adults in the Millennial and Z generations will bear the negative externalitiesof environmental degradation and destruction associated with climate change. Thesegenerations have the greatest agency to engage and promote progress towards climatechange mitigation and sustainability. As higher-education institutions have been thecenters of ground-breaking research and have contributed to the formation of humancapital, colleges and universities around the world hold the key to the possibility of amuch greener, more environmentally conscious world. Universities have incorporatedsustainability into their campuses and have an interest in making progress in climatechange-related issues, recognizing that such education is crucial in preparing studentsto contribute to a sustainable world.

To have better climate change communication, researchers, policy makers, andcommunicators should understand the audience’s views of climate change (Nisbet2009). With increasing emphasis on climate change awareness, it is pivotal to thor-oughly analyze and comprehend to what degree college students understand and areaware of the severity associated with climate change. College students have access toan overabundance of information through digital sources that shape their views. Asurvey conducted by the Associated Press and the American Press Institute amongAmerican young adults finds that two-thirds access news online regularly from socialnetworks and news sites (Irvine 2015). The use of digital sources comes with the task ofdeveloping digital literacy, as well as understanding how the dissemination of infor-mation on such platforms are influenced by individuals’ biases, political affiliations,social networks, and other epistemological factors.

Understanding students’ trustworthiness in news sources for climate change infor-mation is the first step in successfully igniting a movement of students that will pavethe way for a sustainable and greener future. In our research, we include a case study tounderstand climate change knowledge and attitudes among college students and theirtrustworthiness of the news as a source of information about climate change. We studycredibility of news sources among college students as news outlets contribute to

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political knowledge and as informed young voters will become agents of change in ademocratic system. Our study is building upon existing literature that focuses onclimate change perceptions among Americans (Carmichael, Brulle and Huxster 2017;Leiserowitz et al. 2011; Schuldt and Pearson 2016) and on research focused on trust,news sources, and climate change attitudes (Brewer and Ley 2013; Carmichael et al.2017; Corbett and Durfee 2004; Dunlap and McCright 2008; Feldman, Maibach,Roser-Renouf and Leiserowitz 2012). We designed and tested an online surveyfollowing and improving such existing literature (Leiserowitz et al. 2011; Meyer2016; Meyer and Yang 2016).

Our study contributes to the literature by examining how much students trust sixnews sources: The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, TheWashington Post, and Breitbart News. We find that students are overall aware thatclimate change is happening, care about this issue personally, and need more informa-tion to form a firm opinion about climate change. The New York Times and The WallStreet Journal, local news outlets to the college, are the most trusted news sources forclimate change information among these students. We observed a general hesitationtowards the other news sources, as the most frequent choice was neither trust nordistrust for them. Lastly, Fox News and Breitbart are the least trusted sources.

After our case study, we turn to the literature to understand the general hesitation totrust news sources. In this postdigital era, there are four factors that make navigatingand processing information harder: the overabundance of information and digitalplatforms, the dependability on cognitive heuristics, the rise in anti-intellectualism,and the lack of digital literacy. We conclude our study with recommendations toimprove different information literacies and to correct misinformation about climatechange among students.

Literature Review

Recent literature on climate change attitudes and behaviors provides a thoroughanalysis of different climate change perceptions and ideologies throughout the USpopulation. Nisbet and Myers (2007) review public opinion about global warmingacross different dimensions including public awareness of global warming and publicperceptions of scientific consensus. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communi-cation finds that only about one-third of Americans have an education of an A or B onclimate change. Over a third scores around a C and over a quarter scores a D or Fgrade1 (Leiserowitz et al. 2011).

Despite the range of education Americans have on climate change, building uponsuch knowledge and providing consistency in facts is crucial to educate the USAeffectively. Studies on changing climate change attitudes show that individuals can beinfluenced to alter their opinions based on motivated reasoning and confirmation biasdue to the social and political environments one chooses to be a part of. Palm, Lewis

1 Each respondent to the study was given a percentage score based on their total number of correct answersfrom an 81-question survey that tested the overall publics’ knowledge about climate change (scores 90% andabove = A, 80–89% = B, 70–79% = C, 60–69% = D, and scores 59% and below = F) (Leiserowitz, Smith andMarlon 2011).

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and Feng (2017) reveal that 34% of the study’s population that were asked if theybelieved that climate change was happening in 2010, changed their answers whenasked again in 2014.

Personal climate change attitudes and knowledge may be changed through theexposure to climate change information from credible sources that communicatescientific information in an effective way. Researchers investigate the choice of newssources and climate change perceptions. Different studies find that consuming conser-vative news that question climate change decreases beliefs in climate change andhumans’ contributions to global warming (Corbett and Durfee 2004; Feldman et al.2012; Krosnick and MacInnis 2010; Malka, Krosnick, Debell, Pasek and Schneider2009). Narrowing the scope on specific news organizations, Fox News tends to airsignificantly more news stories with human-caused climate change contrarians thanwith supporters (Feldman et al. 2012). Differently, CNN tends to interview guests thatare more concerned about climate change (Feldman et al. 2012). Comparing both newsorganizations, CNN is more likely to cover stories that emphasize that human-causedclimate change is happening than Fox News (Feldman et al. 2012). Using an experi-ment with treatments that presented counter-attitudinal messages and cues to a sampleof Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, Zhou (2016) shows that Repub-licans decrease their support for climate change action and increase their overall climatechange skepticism when presented with counter-attitudinal framing. Using a nationalsurvey of 2041 US adults, Schuldt and Pearson (2016) assess differences betweenwhite and non-white regarding climate change attitudes and mitigation and concludethat racial and ethnic minorities care more about climate change and support moreclimate change policies relative to white adults (Schuldt and Pearson 2016). However,these studies may suffer from endogeneity problems as the views on climate changemay influence the choice of news source. At the same time, the choice of news sourcecould also affect climate change views.

Carmichael et al. (2017) analyze registered Democrat and Republican climatechange views between 2001 and 2014 using time-series analysis and conclude thatpartisan media coverage influences levels of concern regarding climate change. Thelatter strengthens climate change views of people with similar perspectives for bothRepublicans and Democrats, showing an echo-chamber effect. At the same time,Republicans exhibit a hostile media effect, rejecting liberal-media messages andintensifying their pre-existing beliefs (Carmichael et al. 2017). However, their studydoes not control for media consumption, as their data does not include information onwho uses specific media for climate change information.

Beyond news source choices, researchers examine trust in different sources ofinformation on climate change. For example, trust in scientists is noted as an importantheuristic used by individuals to make decisions about science-based topics.Hmielowski, Feldman, Myers, Leiserowitz, and Maibach (2014) investigate the signif-icance of conservative and non-conservative news sources on individuals’ trust inscientists and belief in global warming. By exploring the American public’s relianceon partisan media, they find that greater use of conservative news sources results inlower levels of certainty in global warming, as well as lower levels of trust in scientists.Greater use of non-conservative news sources results in higher levels of globalwarming certainty and trust in scientists (Hmielowski et al. 2014). The implicationsof their study support greatly the assumption that individuals use trust as a cognitive

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heuristic to make judgements about issues, and that this trust is often developed withthe political spheres one is in. Their study highlights how the public’s low level ofknowledge about climate change, the conflicting messages circulated by way of themedia, and the use of heuristics rather than facts to form opinions, have led to suchpolar beliefs in global warming (Hmielowski et al. 2014).

Furthermore, research indicates that US news coverage perpetuates informationalbias by diverging from the consensus scientific view that humans contribute to climatechange (Boykoff 2008). This disconnect between the scientific community and themedia leads to amplified public uncertainty about climate change. The study finds thatbetween 1995 and 2004, US television news coverage was deficient in anthropogenicclimate change reporting. News sources failed in balanced reporting and served toincrease uncertainty regarding human involvement in climate change (Boykoff 2008).This illustrates the bias that individuals may face when forming decisions about climatechange, simply based on the news source they choose to subscribe to.

While researchers study trust in scientists for environmental information, a fewstudies focus on trust in mass media sources that are critical in disseminating environ-mental information to the general public. Brewer and Ley (2013) examine factorsinfluencing trust in such sources for environmental scientific information among adults.They categorize media sources as daily newspaper or television news. However, theydo not consider other information channels such as websites, social media, or mobileapps, which are extremely important in this postdigital era. Moreover, they do notmeasure trust in specific news organizations, which prevents them from consideringany heterogeneity among organizations that may influence the way they cover anddisseminate environmental information. For example, Dunlap and McCright (2008)find that conservative media frequently emphasizes the lack of scientific consensus onthe anthropogenic influence on climate change through content analyses. Moreover,Nisbet (2009) observes that Fox and Friends aired a segment titled ‘Weather Wars’ inwhich US Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) claimed that global warning was occurringdue to natural causes. Moreover, he claimed that mainstream science was starting toaccept the latter conclusion (Nisbet 2009).

Switching to our population of interest, college students, there is limited research onnews trustworthiness among college students. Jarvis, Stroud, and Gilliland (2009)explore trust in news sources among college students and motivate their study by theassumptions that news consumption contributes to political knowledge and that in-formed young voters are fundamental for a solid democratic system. By examiningfactors that make news more attractive and trustworthy among college students, theyfind that students make nuanced distinctions between sources, preferring the dailynewspaper over other sources such as network channels, local TV, cable channels,magazines, web, radio, and comedy TV. Furthermore, students do not necessarily trustthe sources they consult most frequently (Jarvis et al. 2009). As a limitation, they do notdifferentiate news organizations that may communicate the news through differentmedia channels, including different digital sources. In a different study, Golan andBaker (2012) examine media trust and credibility among Mormon college students andconclude that they do not consider the news as credible nor trustworthy. While theyinclude specific news sources and their communication media, they do not focus onenvironmental information or climate change, and focus on a very specific populationof college students.

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To the best of our knowledge, we are the first study investigating the credibility ofnews sources for climate change information among college students. Building uponprevious research, our case study contributes to the literature on climate changeattitudes by providing a deeper investigation as to how knowledgeable students areof climate change and to how much they trust the news as a source of climate changeinformation. As far as we know, this paper is the first to examine students’ perceptionof trust in six news sources directly related to climate change. We provide insightsabout climate change views among college students and about their trust in mainstreamnews sources that complement the existing literature.

Research Methodology: a Case Study at a Private College in New York City

To attain our research goals, an online survey was designed and tested following andimproving existing surveys (Leiserowitz et al. 2011; Meyer 2016; Meyer and Yang2016).2 The survey was designed with input from students and feedback from a pilotstudy. Using Qualtrics, the survey was distributed to 3495 students, the entire under-graduate population from a private college in New York City. After five reminders, weobtained a response rate of about 23%. The survey incorporated Likert scale questionsabout climate change and trust in news sources. The survey also included closed-endedquestions about demographic and college-related characteristics that serve as controlsin our regression analysis. We followed studies on college students when choosingquestions and control variables (Annabi, González-Ramírez and Müller 2018; Meyer2016; Meyer and Yang 2016). Details about the questions, sample, distribution, andsummary statistics are included in Appendix A.

After removing observations with missing responses and following our samplecriteria, our sample size was reduced to 699. Using results from the survey, we studiedstudents’ attitudes towards climate change and their trustworthiness of the news as asource of information about climate change. We examined how certain demographicsand college-related characteristics, such as which school a student was a part of or ifthey had taken an environmental course, influenced their choice of answers in thesurvey. Since the answers for our questions were scales, we use an ordered logitregression for our econometric analysis. Details on the econometric model are foundin Appendix A. For each regression, we included covariates collected in the survey. Wedo not include political affiliation due to endogeneity as we cannot tease out whether astudent has a political affiliation due to his/her climate change views or whether theclimate change views stem from the political preferences. In order to include whichschool respondents are a part of, we set one the School of Business as a reference forcomparison purposes.

2 This survey is available as supplementary material. The survey was approved by the Institutional ReviewBoard and includes questions about other environmental topics not covered in this paper. This article focuseson the climate change questions from the survey. Other questions were used to study additional researchquestions that are not part of this article.

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Results

Climate Change Attitudes and Knowledge

Before we study news credibility, we examined students’ climate change attitudes andknowledge and the way the different demographic characteristics are related to them.When asked How important is the issue of climate change to your personally?, about30% of respondents indicated extremely important. Around 32% selected very impor-tant, 27% selected somewhat important, 8% said slightly important, and 3% said thatclimate change was not at all important to them personally, as exemplified by Fig. 1.Consequently, these young adults care about climate change, which is an important stepin igniting any climate change mitigation movement and in passing any environmentalpolicies.

We employed an ordered logit regression and report the estimated marginal effectsof each covariate on the probability of choosing an answer from the Likert scale, whichare summarized in Table 1. Focusing on the scale item of extremely important and thecovariates that are statistically significant,we discover that students from the Schools ofLiberal Arts and Science are around 14% more likely to select this choice relative tobusiness students, on average. Students who had taken an environmental course areabout 8% more likely to consider climate change as extremely important, which isintuitive as they ought to be more knowledgeable about the environment. Moreover,this suggests that after controlling for schools, we still observed the power of formaleducation channels to promote awareness of climate change and its importance. Anincrease in age by 1 year increases the respondents’ likelihood to select extremelyimportant by approximately 2%. Older students may be more mature and are furtherinto their formal education accumulating more human capital. Lastly, vegetarian3

students are around 23% more likely to indicate extremely important relative to non-vegetarian students. It is possible that students who avoid meat may be more

Fig. 1 Importance of climate change

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environmentally conscious, as meat production contributes to climate change. Hence,this greener life-style choice is associated with more awareness of climate change. Themarginal effects for the remaining Likert scale items in Table 1 can be interpretedsimilarly.

When examining how certain respondents were that climate change was happening,responses indicated strong certitude. This is exemplified by the distribution of re-sponses in Fig. 2. A large percentage of respondents indicated that they were verycertain that climate change was happening. About 60% indicated that they were verycertain, about 29% indicated they were certain, around 10% were uncertain, and onlyabout 1% of respondents stated that climate change was not happening. These resultsreaffirm that students care about climate change and are overall certain that it ishappening.

Table 1 Average Marginal Effects of Ordered Logit Regression

How important is the issue of climate change to you personally?

Extremelyimportant

Veryimportant

Somewhatimportant

Slightlyimportant

Not at allimportant

First generation 0.003(0.031)

0.000(0.005)

-0.002(0.023)

-0.001(0.009)

0.000(0.004)

Male -0.106(0.029)

-0.023**(0.010)

0.080***(0.023)

0.034***(0.011)

0.016***(0.006)

Caucasian -0.058*(0.032)

-0.007(0.004)

0.042*(0.023)

0.016*(0.009)

0.007*(0.004)

School of Education 0.018(0.052)

0.002(0.005)

-0.013(0.037)

-0.005(0.014)

-0.002(0.006)

School of Science 0.142**(0.060)

-0.005(0.013)

-0.092***(0.035)

-0.031***(0.011)

-0.013***(0.005)

School ofEngineering

0.042(0.043)

0.005(0.004)

-0.030(0.030)

-0.011(0.011)

-0.005(0.005)

School of LiberalArts

0.139***(0.047)

0.003(0.008)

-0.094***(0.030)

-0.034***(0.010)

-0.015***(0.005)

Age 0.022**(0.011)

0.003(0.002)

-0.016**(0.008)

-0.006**(0.003)

-0.003(0.001)

Wage 0.000(0.000)

0.000(0.000)

0.000(0.000)

0.000(0.000)

0.000(0.000)

Environmentalcourse

0.084***(0.030)

0.011*(0.006)

-0.061***(0.022)

-0.024***(0.009)

-0.011**(0.004)

Environmental group 0.179(0.029)

0.000**(0.000)

-0.128(0.022)

-0.052(0.010)

-0.024(0.006)

Vegetarian 0.234***(0.075)

-0.034(0.030)

-0.139(0.035)

-0.043(0.010)

-0.018(0.005)

GPA 0.010(0.030)

0.001(0.005)

-0.007(0.022)

-0.003(0.009)

-0.001(0.004)

Note: Robust standard errors are in parenthesis: *significant at 10%, **significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

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Climate Change News Credibility

Our analysis of trustworthiness in the news begins by asking respondents the degree ofinformation they needed in order to form a firm opinion about climate change. Whenlooking at the distribution in Fig. 3, around 12% of respondents indicated that theyneeded a lot more information to form a firm opinion. About 40% indicated that theyneeded some more information. Approximately 27% needed a little more information,and about 20% needed no more information to form a firm opinion. Therefore, around80% of the students want more information to form a firm opinion about climatechange. Since climate change attitudes are influenced by the exposure to climatechange information from sources that communicate scientific information in an effec-tive way, we study the credibility in six news outlets, including some that cover climatechange in very different ways.

Fig. 2 Certainty that climate change is happening

Fig. 3 Information needed to understand climate change

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We asked respondents to indicate their level of trust of the news outlets as a sourceof information about climate change and its potential impacts. The six sources includedBreitbart News, CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, andThe Washington Post, and their corresponding distributions can be found Fig. 4. Weincluded sources that encompass different political ideologies and that cover climatechange differently. We also included Fox News, CNN, and The New York Times,which have been used in at least one study (Carmichael et al. 2017; Dunlap andMcCright 2008; Hmielowski et al. 2014; Nisbet 2009). We observed that only twoout of the six news sources have either trust or strongly trust as the most frequentanswer, those being The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the localnewspapers to the college. We conjecture that these sources have a higher trust leveldue to their perceived quality and because students are more familiar with them. Frombehavioral economics, we know that heuristics and biases influence decision making.Being familiar with these two news outlets may influence the level of trust studentsexhibit.

For the remaining sources, respondents mostly answer Neither trust nor distrust, asdepicted by the highest bar for these sources, excluding those who do not know thesource. This indicates students’ hesitation towards the news as a source of informationon climate change. The latter is very concerning as some of these news outlets coverclimate change information in contrasting ways. As stated in the literature review,conservative media tends to allocate more air time to climate change contrarians and toemphasize the lack of consensus on the anthropogenic nature of climate change(Dunlap and McCright 2008; Feldman et al. 2012). Conversely, CNN provides moreair time to guests concerned about climate change and covers more stories thatemphasize the anthropogenic nature of climate change (Feldman et al. 2012). WhileCNN has higher (lower) bars than Fox News for trust and strongly trust (distrust andstrongly distrust), students still appear hesitant about CNN. In general, Fox News is themost distrusted source, followed by Breitbart, and CNN. The most trusted sources areThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

Fig. 4 Trust in news sources for climate change information

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To complete our analysis, we estimated an ordered logistic regression for eachsource. We removed those who respond to the answer choice do not know the sourcein order to avoid respondents choosing neither if they were not familiar with the source.For example, almost a half of our sample do not know Breitbart News as depicted inFig. 4. The average marginal effects for strongly trust and strongly distrust for the sixregressions are in Table 2. For a traditionally more conservative new source such asFox News that questions climate change relevance and its anthropogenic causes,students in the School of Science, School of Engineering, and School of Liberal Artswere 23%, 14%, and 30% more likely to strongly distrust Fox News than School ofBusiness students. An increase in age by 1 year increased the likelihood an individualwould strongly distrust Fox News by around 3%. Caucasians, however, were approx-imately 6% less likely to strongly distrust Fox news. Turning to Breitbart News, aneven more conservative news source, students in the School of Liberal Arts werearound 19% more likely to strongly distrust Breitbart News. An increase in GPA by1 increased the likelihood a student would strongly distrust Breitbart by around 8%.However, it is worth noting that for Breitbart, our sample size for the regression isreduced, as over 300 students did not know this source. For these news sources thatquestion climate change and its scientific consensus, we find that students from theSchool of Liberal arts were more likely to strongly distrust them for climate changeinformation relative to business students.

For news sources that cover the importance of climate change and recognizehumans’ contribution such as CNN and The Washington Post, we find that males weremore likely to distrust these sources relative to females. Table 2 shows that males wereabout 4% less likely to strongly trust CNN and 6%more likely to strongly distrust. Thesame result occurs for The Washington Post, as males were less likely to strongly trustthe source by 3% and 1% more likely to strongly distrust. However, we acknowledgethat our sample has an over-representation of female students relative to the college’spopulation. Moreover, School of Engineering students were about 5% less likely tostrongly trust The Washington Post relative to business students.

Moving to the local news sources to the college, the marginal effects for The NewYork Times and The Wall Street Journal are summarized in Table 2. For The NewYork Times, males were 9% less likely to strongly trust and around 2% more likely tostrongly distrust this source. Those in the School of Engineering were about 5% lesslikely to strongly trust The New York Times relative to business students. Studentswho had taken an environmental course were about 5% more likely to strongly trust,and students with higher GPAs were more likely to strongly trust this source. We notethat participation in an environmental group does not have a statistically significanteffect, suggesting that formal education appears to be more influential in this context.For TheWall Street Journal, we find that students in the School of Education, School ofScience, School of Engineering and School of Liberal Arts were about 5, 7, 10, and 6%less likely to strongly trust the source relative to business students. It may be thatbusiness students were more likely to strongly trust The Wall Street Journal even forclimate change information, as it is the source that specializes in business-related news.Thus, these students are likely very familiar with this source and may translate itsbusiness reputation to other topics.

We acknowledge that our study is limited by the sample representativeness forgender and the possible overrepresentation of environmentally minded students.

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Table2

Average

MarginalEffectsforOrdered

LogitRegression–TrustinNew

sSources

Fox

New

sBreitba

rtCNN

Washing

tonPost

New

YorkTim

esWallStreet

Journa

l

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Firstgeneration

-0.004

(0.007)

0.014

(0.028)

0.013

(0.009)

-0.061

(0.039)

-0.012

(0.010)

0.015

(0.0130)

-0.015

(0.015)

0.006

(0.006)

-0.013

(0.025)

0.002

(0.004)

-0.026

(0.018)

0.007

(0.005)

Male

0.002

(0.007)

-0.007

(0.027)

-0.011

(0.008)

0.058

(0.042)

-0.044***

(0.011)

0.061***

(0.016)

-0.031**

(0.015)

0.013*

(0.007)

-0.090***

(0.024)

0.016***

(0.006)

-0.024

(0.019)

0.006

(0.005)

Cau

casian

0.014**

(0.007)

-0.055**

(0.028)

0.002

(0.008)

-0.008

(0.040)

-0.017

(0.011)

0.019

(0.012)

-0.017

(0.016)

0.006

(0.006)

-0.021

(0.025)

0.003

(0.004)

0.012

(0.018)

-0.003

(0.005)

Scho

olof

Edu

cation

-0.015

(0.009)

0.068

(0.050)

0.003

(0.014)

-0.016

(0.065)

0.009

(0.019)

-0.010

(0.019)

-0.004

(0.025)

0.002

(0.010)

0.000

(0.041)

0.000

(0.006)

-0.052**

(0.024)

0.016

(0.011)

Scho

olof

Science

-0.035***

(0.008)

0.225***

(0.061)

-0.015

(0.011)

0.101

(0.088)

0.022

(0.022)

-0.022

(0.018)

-0.033

(0.021)

0.016

(0.014)

0.001

(0.042)

0.000

(0.006)

-0.072***

(0.021)

0.028**

(0.014)

Scho

olof

Eng

ineering

-0.030***

(0.009)

0.140***

(0.043)

-0.011

(0.010)

0.060

(0.059)

-0.018

(0.013)

0.024

(0.019)

-0.053***

(0.018)

0.0260**

(0.011)

-0.054*

(0.031)

0.009

(0.006)

-0.097***

(0.020)

0.033***

(0.011)

Scho

olof

Liberal

Arts

-0.053***

(0.010)

0.302***

(0.048)

-0.029***

(0.010)

0.188***

(0.065)

0.008

(0.016)

-0.009

(0.017)

0.005

(0.021)

-0.002

(0.008)

0.017

(0.035)

-0.002

(0.005)

-0.056**

(0.022)

0.016*

(0.008)

Age

-0.009***

(0.003)

0.034***

(0.009)

-0.002

(0.003)

0.010

(0.013)

-0.003

(0.004)

0.004

(0.004)

-0.008

(0.005)

0.003

(0.002)

-0.006

(0.008)

0.001

(0.001)

-0.008

(0.006)

0.002

(0.002)

Wage

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

Env

iron

mentalcourse

0.000

(0.000)

0.000

(0.000)

-0.007

(0.008)

0.035

(0.039)

-0.001

(0.010)

0.001

(0.012)

0.024

(0.015)

-0.009

(0.006)

0.049**

(0.025)

-0.007*

(0.004)

0.017

(0.018)

-0.004

(0.004)

Env

iron

mentalgrou

p-0.007

(0.007)

0.028

(0.025)

-0.009

(0.008)

0.048

(0.038)

0.011

(0.010)

-0.013

(0.012)

0.020

(0.015)

-0.008

(0.006)

0.024

(0.024)

-0.004

(0.004)

0.007

(0.018)

-0.002

(0.004)

Vegetarian

-0.005

(0.011)

0.020

(0.049)

-0.007

(0.012)

0.039

(0.073)

-0.007

(0.017)

0.008

(0.023)

0.047

(0.035)

-0.013*

(0.008)

0.058

(0.051)

-0.007

(0.005)

0.027

(0.037)

-0.005

(0.007)

Postdigital Science and Education

Table2

(contin

ued)

Fox

New

sBreitba

rtCNN

Washing

tonPost

New

YorkTim

esWallStreet

Journa

l

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

Strong

lytrust

Strong

lydistrust

GPA

-0.010

(0.007)

0.040

(0.027)

-0.016**

(0.008)

0.083**

(0.039)

0.013

(0.011)

-0.016

(0.012)

0.020

(0.015)

-0.008

(0.006)

0.057**

(0.025)

-0.009**

(0.004)

0.027

(0.019)

-0.006

(0.005)

Note:Robuststandarderrorsarein

parenthesis:*significant

at10%,**significant

at5%

,***significantat1

%.E

stim

ated

averagemarginaleffectsarealso

availableforTrust,Neither

Trustn

orDistrust,andDistrustu

ponrequest

Postdigital Science and Education

However, participation in environmental groups does not have a statistically significantinfluence in the results. We also note that future research may focus on the waystudents change their views and trust throughout their college careers. For that, werecommend collecting panel data to analyze changes throughout time. In the end,understanding young adults’ climate change attitudes and credibility in news sourcesis an important step in designing and promoting climate change policies.

Our case study finds that participation in an environmental course and beingvegetarian appear to positively influence students’ environmental attitudes and knowl-edge. We conjecture that students become more environmental through formal educa-tion channels such as environmental courses. Furthermore, a lifestyle choice of noteating meat is positively correlated with more environmentally conscious behavior andunderstanding of climate change, as these students may be more aware of meatproduction and consumption impacts on our environment. While most students areaware of climate change and find it important to them, their credibility in news sourcesfor climate change information is overall weak.

Discussion

Postdigital Communication and the Hesitation to Trust Information

In our case study, we find a general hesitation to trust nor distrust different newssources for climate change information. Among the six sources we inquired about, thehighest response for four of the sources, Breitbart, Fox News, CNN, and The Wash-ington Post, was neither trust nor distrust. Given that Breitbart and Fox News coverclimate change in very contrasting ways relative to CNN and The Washington Post,students appear generally doubtful about the quality and trustworthiness of these foursources. This raises the question of why students are unable to show considerably moretrust in the news sources that go along with the scientific consensus on climate changerelative to sources that provide platforms for climate change contrarians. In otherwords, why is the contrast between news sources such as Breitbart or Fox News andCNN or the Washington Post not sharper?

Developments in communication as well as the advent of post-truth may explain thegeneral mistrust in contrasting news media. Since the 1970s, the U.S. media environ-ment has undergone profound structural changes including deregulation, the expansionof cable news television, the popularity of the Internet, and the spread of misinforma-tion through social media (Iyengar and Massey 2019). These changes have promoteddistrust in scientific information, the spread of misinformation, and political polariza-tion. Within post-truth, consumers reject news sources and scientific evidence that clashwith their views, preventing the dissemination of scientific findings and promoting‘alternative facts’ (Iyengar and Massey 2019). As post-truth undermines facts andscience, consumers may think there is less truth, which may explain the decrease intrust in news sources for climate change information among students.

In this section, we explore existing studies on postdigital communication and trust tounderstand the general mistrust in news sources and online information and the barriersthat may prevent students from fully assessing digital information. For example,

Postdigital Science and Education

Heyamoto and Milbourn (2018) conclude that only 32% of Americans believe themedia to be trustworthy. They consider authenticity, transparency, and consistency asimportant pillars to building trust (Heyamoto and Milbourn 2018). From the currentliterature, distrust in information may be influenced by the overabundance of informa-tion and media platforms, the usage of cognitive heuristics to process information, therise of anti-intellectualism, and the lack of digital literacy. In the following subsections,we explain each of this factors in detail.

Overabundance of Information and Digital Platforms

Judging news and making informed decisions are increasingly difficult due to theoverabundance of inaccurate information, the rise in fake news, and the deliberatemisguidance by certain actors (Khan 2020). With multiple digital and social mediaplatforms, the increasing volume of news covered and shared by different actorsdiminishes the possibility of having complete information and of taking into accountthe other side of an online interaction (Khan 2020). Through the digitization of news,journalists and non-journalists are given a platform to communicate news stories and toreach bigger audiences (Tandoc Jr., Lim and Ling 2018). This larger platform is furtheraffected by the rise in fake news, which can be used to spread false stories on socialmedia and to also discredit the critical reporting of certain news organizations (TandocJr. et al. 2018). Those who perpetuate fake news take advantage of an informationecosystem that is flooded with the overabundance of information, as well as theunderstanding that information platforms will prioritize content that is clickable andenticing (MacKenzie and Bhatt 2020). Thus, navigating through multiple sources andassessing their quality becomes more complex as information is shared and spreadfaster through social media (Tandoc Jr. et al. 2018). Moreover, media ecologies,especially social media ecologies, do not address challenges connected to authenticity,rhetorical manipulation, and the lack of proper critical media literacy at educationalinstitutions (Jiang and Vetter 2020). Consequently, as the supply of real news and fakenews grows through different digital platforms and media ecologies, the developmentof trust requires more time, cognition, and effort to critically assess many differentsources.

These studies illustrate that the overabundance and the spread of real and fakeinformation through social media and digital platforms make processing and assessingthem more challenging. Students discern the quality of news sources in a complex,evolving, and saturated digital environment. As students are exposed to vast volumes ofinformation through social media and different digital platforms, the cognitive effortrequired becomes more intense. This could likely provide an explanation as to whystudents are hesitant to trust nor distrust news sources, as they recognize that informa-tion produced by news sources could be fake news but are also reluctant to fact-checkor validate the news they absorb due to the overabundance of information. Conse-quently, the abundance of inaccurate information and the spread of fake news contrib-ute to an environment of uncertainty for students, which may help explain theirhesitation to trust such contrasting news sources for climate change information. Futureresearch should focus on students’ consumption of information and news given thesechallenges.

Postdigital Science and Education

Cognitive Heuristics Used to Judge Information

Cognitive heuristics are mental short-cuts or rules of thumb used to reduce cognitiveefforts associated with a judgment task under uncertainty (Metzger, Hartsell andFlanagin 2020; Shah and Oppenheimer 2008; Tversky and Kahneman 1974). Studentsmay be uncertain as to whether to trust news sources due to the oversupply of bothaccurate and inaccurate online information, which makes it harder to judge the origin ofinformation, its quality, and its, veracity (Metzger and Flanagin 2013). As a result, theyface increasing cognitive costs and may rely on effort-reducing heuristics to assess thevalidity of information (Metzger and Flanagin 2013, 2015; Shah and Oppenheimer2008). In essence, cognitive heuristics become strategies to examine the credibility andaccuracy of online information with a reduced cognitive load, often ignoring its content(Metzger and Flanagin 2013). These strategies may result in the acceptance of fakenews or inaccurate news as the truth, as individuals are relying on the heuristics, ratherthan fact-checking efforts, to judge information produced by news sources.

For example, individuals may judge information based on the reputation heuristic,which assigns credibility based on familiarity (Metzger, Flanagin and Medders 2010).Students may trust a news source by assessing its representativeness and prominence,which may explain why The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were moretrusted by our sample due to their local and recognizable presence. Familiarity alsoemerges through the identification of known features within a digital platform. Whenassessing new online information, individuals may use the expectancy violation heu-ristic, which assigns less credibility to sources with unexpected features (Metzger et al.2010). Trustworthiness may be judged by identifying recognizable makers of reliabilityand by using contextual factors such as familiarity with webpage interface (Khan2020). When it comes to news sources, individuals may judge sources that theyfrequent often to be more trustworthy, as they are more familiar with the digitalinterface or general layout of that source. Thus, the familiarity with the source and itsdigital platform becomes mental short-cuts used to judge online information withoutevaluating its content.

Similarly, the endorsement heuristic may be employed by assigning credibility toinformation trusted or recommended by others (Metzger et al. 2010). Individuals mayrely on institutionalized practices supported by political, social, or cultural governingbodies when assessing the validity of media information (Khan 2020). For example,specific news sources like CNN and Fox News often have different followings as theyhave contrasting political and social strategies to news reporting. Individuals may deeminformation to be credible simply because they associate with the larger demographicthat supports the news source. Consumers may also legitimize information shared ontheir social networks by people they know without verifying the information (TandocJr. et al. 2018). Therefore, students may trust news on climate change shared by a closefriend or influencer without critically assessing it. Moreover, they may rely on likes orcomments to further legitimize and propagate information (Tandoc Jr. et al. 2018). Theendorsement heuristic becomes problematic when consumers trust and share inaccurateand misleading information due to the falsely association between credibility andpopularity (Metzger and Flanagin 2013). Future research should focus on ways tomeasure and reduce the usage of the endorsement heuristic to decrease the spread ofmisinformation on important topics such as climate change.

Postdigital Science and Education

Switching to a cognitive heuristic that considers content, the self-confirmationheuristic suggests that consumers assign more trust to sources that agree with theirbeliefs and discounts information that goes against them (Metzger et al. 2010). Thus,they avoid the cognitive effort of considering and assessing attitude-challenging infor-mation. Strong partisanship may encourage a selective information process that sup-ports own party’s views and that actively discards counter-arguments or ignoresmissing facts (Benegal and Scruggs 2018; Metzger et al. 2020). Modern mediaperpetuates this behavior as news sources have developed distinctive identities andunderstand how to appeal to demographics with specific political, cultural, and socialpreferences for news. News sources like CNN and Fox News, which are viewed by thepublic to be on opposite sides of the political spectrum, know how to employ the use ofbuzzwords, algorithms, and filters to provide their respective demographics with newsthey know they want to see. Partisan selective exposure may happen due to either adesire to reduce cognitive dissonance or because attitude-consistent news sourcesappear more credible than attitude-challenging news sources (Metzger et al. 2020).Cognitive dissonance may be reduced through selective exposure by avoiding attitude-challenging news sources and the psychological discomfort of having own viewschallenged (Festinger 1957; Metzger et al. 2020). As a result, consumers may seekinformation sources that align with their own views (Benegal and Scruggs 2018). Bhattand MacKenzie (2019) find that, among their study participants, one student acknowl-edges the avoidance of information in direct conflict with the student’s political views.This student ritualizes the practice of seeking information that goes along the students’views, avoiding exposure to different viewpoints (Bhatt and MacKenzie 2019). Whilethe endorsement heuristic considers content by seeking attitude-consistent information,it fails to critically assess it by ignoring other viewpoints and by not fact-checking it.

In our case study, there is diversity in political affiliation among our student sample,with 40% Democrat, 18% Republican, 15% Independent, and 26% without a politicalaffiliation. If students were seeking echo-chambers and using the self-confirmationheuristic, we would expect more students willing to trust or distrust each news source.Thus, the observed hesitation may be explained by the endorsement, reputation, andexpectancy violation heuristics. Taken together, these three heuristics become danger-ous as they may promote post-truth as well as facilitate the spread of misinformationand fake news that are not evaluated by their content. Future research should investigatethe way these four cognitive heuristics influence news consumption and trustworthinessand their degree in which they promote misinformation about climate change and otherimportant topics.

Anti-Intellectualism

Anti-intellectualism is also identified as an explanation for the lack of critical assess-ment of information connected to climate change. Anti-intellectualism is associatedwith negative attitudes and public distrust towards scientists and experts and goesbeyond party-membership or ideology (Motta 2018). In contrast, Gauchat (2012) findsthat anti-intellectual attitudes have been increasing for decades, particularly amongconservatives. Motta (2018) explains that anti-intellectualism increases the probabilityof denying scientific consensus, such as the existence of anthropomorphic climatechange or the safety of nuclear power. He finds that anti-intellectualism doubts the

Postdigital Science and Education

expert consensus connected to climate change and nuclear power (Motta 2018). Virtueepistemology, which focuses on the intellectual and character qualities a personrequires in order to inquire about the state of knowledge, shows that epistemic vices,like arrogance, dogmatism, prejudice, and over confidence, can present significantbarriers to engaging in honest discussion (MacKenzie and Bhatt 2020). These vicescan result in the undermining of trust, particularly loss of trust in institutions, experts,and democratic processes (MacKenzie and Bhatt 2020), strengthening anti-intellectualism.

Within our case study, the hesitation to trust nor distrust such contrasting newssources on climate change may suggest that students are not recognizing the sourcesthat provide a platform to climate change experts. If more students recognized thatBreitbart and Fox News give voice to climate change contrarians, we would expect toobserve much more distrust for these sources, as opposed to hesitation or trust. Sourceslike Breitbart and Fox News may also incorporate anti-intellectualism into theirmessaging and reporting so frequently, that viewers and readers may not distinctivelyidentify such attitudes and thus may not be inclined to be more distrusting of thesesources. Peters (2019) warns against anti-intellectualism and categorizes it as a virusexpanding and threatening public discourse in a democracy. In a post-truth politics era,anti-intellectualism is linked to, among other things, anti-environment and nationalpopulism that thrives on emotion and belief as opposed to fact, reason, or argument. Heemphasizes the importance of recognizing anti-intellectualism among educators and offinding effective strategies to address anti-intellectualism (Peters 2019). Future workmay research anti-intellectualism among students connected to climate change and theirpursuit of information and news about it.

Lack of Digital Literacy

In addition to the overabundance of information, the use of heuristics, and the rise ofintellectualism, the lack of digital literacy is also identified as possible explanation forthe increases of the distrust in digital information. For example, distrust in the mediahas intensified due to an environment of black box algorithms, social media commu-nication, and assaults on the legitimacy of traditional news outlets (Khan 2020). Thesecomponents of digital information need to be understood through digital media literacyin order to properly assess and trust digital information. Bhatt and MacKenzie (2019)discuss the importance of digital literacy, in general, in understanding the exploitationof user data by platform owners or sponsors, the way Internet users are directed tobrowsing options that align with their perceptions, and the way users navigate vastamounts of online information. As digital technologies employ the filtering andsubsequent display of information by algorithms, online users must be aware andcritical of such practices. They argue that there is limited accountability and transpar-ency of the underlying motivations, values, and intentions behind Internet platformdesigns, including search engines (Bhatt and MacKenzie 2019). As a result, the lack ofliteracy on the intricacy of the digital environment and the different components of thedevelopment and display of information may increase the distrust in digital sources.

At the same time, students’ ritualized digital media practices may allocate trust tocertain digital media actors (Bhatt and MacKenzie 2019). In general, college studentsare frequently passive consumers of online information. Students may attribute

Postdigital Science and Education

authority and credibility to certain sources, such as instructors, Internet sources, orsearch engine results. It is also plausible that they may not assign credibility if they useignorance as a social practice. Students may not consider the distribution of knowledgeby algorithms and rely on trust to specific actors to process the voluminous amount ofonline information (Bhatt and MacKenzie 2019). Students may lack the digital literacyacumen to fact-check and process information beyond algorithm-presented news. Someof the news sources featured in the study employ the use of strategies that deliver newsthat they anticipate their respective demographics to want. Students may interpret thisreporting without taking into consideration the filtering of information that is done. Asstated before, students may depend on heuristics to process and validate information.Bhatt and MacKenzie (2019) conclude that unless students have digital literacy,including an understanding of platform design, information algorithms, and datadiscrimination, students may not be independent or in control of their informationsearches as they seem to believe. They argue that ignorance, the lack of knowledge orawareness, done as a social practice, plays a complex role in the knowledge creation ofuniversity students (Bhatt and MacKenzie 2019). Our case study does not exploredigital literacy, but future research should measure digital literacy and connect it to trustin news sources.

This section covers four possible factors that explain why it may be harder forstudents to assess information and trust news sources. Three of these factors make itharder to process and assess information: the overabundance of information and digitalplatforms, the usage of heuristics, and the rise in anti-intellectualism. The fourth factorworks in the opposite direction: digital literacy helps students critical assess informa-tion. In fact, digital literacy allows students to learn to navigate voluminous informa-tion, to decrease the usage of heuristics, and to decrease anti-intellectualism. In the lastpart of the manuscript, we point to different literacies that help students judge infor-mation in this postdigital era.

Strategies to Critical Assess News Sources and to Promote Climate ChangeInformation in Higher Education

In this section, we discuss strategies that may be implemented to improve the criticalprocessing of digital information and to decrease the hesitation to trust nor distrust newssources in higher education. We explore recommendations to improve students’ as-sessment of digital information with the goal of improving their critical judgement ofdifferent news sources. The literature emphasizes the importance of different informa-tion literacies (Bhatt and MacKenzie 2019; Jandrić 2019; Khan 2020) to understand theway information is developed, sponsored, and displayed by algorithms (Bhatt andMacKenzie 2019) and the human-bot interactions in digital platforms (Jiang andVetter 2020). These literacies help students navigate and critically assess informationin this postdigital era. We conclude this section with a specific recommendation toimprove climate change knowledge through digital media among students.

Media and information literacy plays a crucial role in teaching critical skills forunderstanding and assessing news information (Khan 2020). Rebuilding trust in newssources can be understood as an optimization that requires systematic renegotiationthrough media and information literacy (Khan 2020). Educators should consider media

Postdigital Science and Education

and information literacy as a model for pedagogy. Jandrić (2019) highlights theimportance of critical media literacy as a way to navigate postdigital media content.Bhatt and MacKenzie (2019) emphasize the importance of facilitating the developmentof critical awareness in online spaces and of understanding the way information isdeveloped, sponsored, and displayed by algorithms. This critical awareness is crucial indisseminating information that may be for the purpose of humor or parody, which isfrequently found across all information platforms. Satirical newspapers, for example,can often be misconstrued for truthful information if the audience does not understandthe imitation nature of the source (Sinclair 2020). Failed parody, or when the audiencedoes not ‘get it,’ can help perpetuate fake news, and the practice or people that theparody is targeting (Sinclair 2020). Sinclair (2020) emphasizes the importance of acuitywhen coming across parody or satire on information platforms, so that such methodsare not diluted to be fake news (Sinclair 2020). As part of the digital literacy develop-ment, students must become aware and critical of exogenous actors that influence andshape their online experiences as they search for information (Bhatt and MacKenzie2019). Similarly, Noble (2018) points to students’ need to understand how knowledgeis produced, sponsored, and valued or withheld (Noble 2018). Thus, these informationliteracies ought to be part higher education’s core curriculum such that students learn tonavigate large amounts of information with a critical lens and to allocate reasonabletrust to different sources depending on their quality.

Within information literacies, Jiang and Vetter (2020) emphasize the importance ofunderstanding the human and nonhuman interference in the information validationprocess. As such, critical media literacy, including the critical assessment of bots ininfluencing content, becomes important in this postdigital communication era. Whilesome bots are used to check the validity of content (e.g., in Wikipedia), the algorithmsbehind them are not exempt from biases and commercial interests that may reinforcespecific beliefs and ideologies while ignoring other views. These biases and interests mayreinforce asymmetrical power relations in digital media, making it harder to assess trustand credibility in this postdigital era. Through postdigital critical media literacy, studentsare more critical of online information valuation as they identify and assess bot-humaninteraction. They recommend that educators be aware of students’ inherited digital mediaassumptions and to ask students to question them (Jiang and Vetter 2020). The hesitationto trust the news sources in our case study may signal that students are questioningsources. However, the contrast between a few of the new sources implies that studentsneed more digital literacy to critically assess them.

We conclude this section with a specific recommendation to correct misinformationabout climate change, which is important to promote climate change policies (Benegaland Scruggs 2018). While it may be intuitive to expect scientists to be an effective,credible, and neutral information source to persuade people about climate change, othersources of information may be more persuasive, including political party leaders.Through a survey experiment, they study the effectiveness of different informationsources to increase concern and agreement with the scientific consensus on climatechange. They conclude that prominent Republicans who speak about the scientificconsensus are more effective than Democrats or scientific experts. Going against theirown party’s expected position, Republicans gather more attention and face higher coststhat may provide more persuasive value (Benegal and Scruggs 2018).

Postdigital Science and Education

Conclusion

Our case study finds that in general, students are aware that climate change ishappening, and specify that climate change is an issue important to them personally,and that some more information is needed for respondents to form a firm opinion aboutclimate change. A noticeable majority of students want more information about climatechange to form a strong opinion about it. When asked about the level of trust in sixnews sources for climate change information (Fox News, Breitbart, CNN, The Wash-ington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal), students seemhesitant to trust most news sources, except for the local news outlets, with neither trustnor distrust as the most frequent choice. This hesitation is interesting as there aredifferences in climate change information among sources with conservative outletsdevoting more time to climate change contrarians.

The second part of the manuscript attempts to explain why such hesitation existsreferring to existing literature. First, the overabundance of information and digitalplatforms requires more cognitive load and time to process content, making it harderand costly. As a result, consumers rely on four cognitive heuristics to judge informationwith a reduced effort: reputation, expectancy violation, endorsement, and self-confir-mation. These heuristics are dangerous as they help spread misinformation, fake news,and post-truth. As a third explanation, the rise in anti-intellectualism, which questionsexperts and scientific consensus, may explain why students do not show more distrustin news sources that give voice to climate change contrarians. Lastly, the lack of digitalliteracy is identified as a barrier that prevents students from understanding the waycontent is developed, produced, and shared. Increasing digital literacy helps studentsnavigate through vast amounts of content and stop using heuristics and anti-intellectualism to judge information. We conclude the paper by emphasizing theimportance of developing information literacies in higher education to helps studentsnavigate and critically assess information. By increasing these literacies, students’hesitation to critically assess, judge, and therefore trust or distrust sources on climatechange information will diminish.

While this study provides a first look at students’ trustworthiness of news sources forclimate change information, more research should be conducted to understand climatechange news consumption among college students and the relation between newsconsumption and political support for environmental policies in this postdigital era.Moreover, there is room for more research to find strategies to improve the criticalassessment of information and to correct misinformation about climate change in thispostdigital era. For example, communicating and promoting Republican elites whoendorse the scientific consensus on climate change may serve as a way to decrease thepublic divide on anthropogenic climate change and on the importance of climatechange policies (Benegal and Scruggs 2018). We suggest that environmental coursesmay include media from Republicans or conservatives who align with the scientificconsensus and promote climate change policies. For example, Ted Halstead has a TEDTalk titled ‘A climate solution where all sides can win’, which promotes a carbon taxwith a carbon dividend that has bipartisan support and mobilizes conservative leadersand CEOs (Halstead 2017). We recommend that educators assign this or similar mediato correct misinformation about climate change among students. We are hopeful thatour findings shed light onto how critical the role of young people and universities are in

Postdigital Science and Education

the fight to save our planet. Not only must we engage those with the agency for change,but we must also properly communicate science and facts so that the public is educatedon the action that must be taken to collectively to achieve a more environmentallysound future.

Acknowledgments We acknowledge that Sierra Arral and Veronica Cheng were part of the survey designand data collection, but they studied different research questions with different parts of the survey. We aregrateful for the assistance provided by Cindy Duggan, Jake Holmquist, and the members of the InformationTechnology Services from Manhattan College, who helped with the distribution of the survey throughQualtrics. We also acknowledge and thank for the comments and feedback received at the Jasper SummerResearch Scholars Symposium, at the Eastern Economic Association (EEA) conference, at the Association forEnvironmental and Resource Economists (AERE) sessions at the Midwest Economic Association (MEA)conference, and at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability Conference (AASHE) conference.

Authors’ Contributions Cheng led the literature review with help and feedback from González-Ramírez.Both authors participated in the research design, survey creation, and data collection. Cheng completed thedata analysis with feedback and help from González-Ramírez. The data visualization was completed by bothauthors. Cheng led the first draft of the manuscript. Thereafter, González-Ramírez and Cheng had severalrounds of revisions. Thus, the two authors participated in the writing, review, and editing process of themanuscript. For the revisions, González-Ramírez led the changes and led the Discussion section with the helpfrom Cheng. Both authors contributed to the revisions of the manuscript.

Funding Information This research was supported by the Dean’s Office at the O’Malley School ofBusiness and the Jasper Summer Research Scholars Program at Manhattan College. In addition, this researchbenefitted from support from the National Science Foundation and the AEA Mentoring Program (NSFAwards #1357478 & 1730651).

Data Availability All materials, data, and protocols were approved by the Institutional Review Board.Due to IRB privacy policies, our data cannot be shared. Survey instrument is included.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest/Competing Interests The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Affiliations

Heyi Cheng1& Jimena Gonzalez-Ramirez1

1 The O’Malley School of Business, Manhattan College, 4513 Manhattan College Parkway, DLS 422,Riverdale, NY 10463, USA

Postdigital Science and Education