This thesis is an exploratory work on consumers’ lay beliefs about news. Across 4 studies I show that consumers’ lay beliefs about news being a fact or opinion has significant consumer behavioral consequences. Study 1 shows that a consumer’s lay belief about news being a fact or opinion significantly affects their sharing behavior with regards to online news. Study 2 shows that the mere presence of a comment space after a news article significantly effects the extent to which the news article is perceived as more of an opinion than a fact. Such an effect of presence or absence of a comment space after the article on the perceived factual nature of the news article is mediated by the consumer’s perceived involvement. Study 3 and study 4 demonstrate the effect of consumer’s lay beliefs a...[ Read more ]

This thesis is an exploratory work on consumers’ lay beliefs about news. Across 4 studies I show that consumers’ lay beliefs about news being a fact or opinion has significant consumer behavioral consequences. Study 1 shows that a consumer’s lay belief about news being a fact or opinion significantly affects their sharing behavior with regards to online news. Study 2 shows that the mere presence of a comment space after a news article significantly effects the extent to which the news article is perceived as more of an opinion than a fact. Such an effect of presence or absence of a comment space after the article on the perceived factual nature of the news article is mediated by the consumer’s perceived involvement. Study 3 and study 4 demonstrate the effect of consumer’s lay beliefs about news in general, i.e. their chronic lay belief about news being a fact or opinion, on the persuasiveness of a specific news article. Study 3 demonstrates a significant three-way interaction of source of the news article (a close friend on Facebook versus a mainstream news channel on social media), consumer’s need for cognition, and consumer’s lay belief about news in general, on the perceived persuasiveness of the information in that specific news article. Study 4, using a participant sample very different from that used in study 3 (participants from U.S. as compared to undergraduate students in Hong Kong), satisfactorily replicates a two-way interaction effect of consumer’s lay belief about news (i.e. chronic lay belief) and consumer’s need for cognition that was found in the ‘a close friend on Facebook’ condition of study 3, adding credence to the robustness and generalizability of the observed effects.