Abstract
This article introduces the concept of expressive distrust to address persistent puzzles in media trust research. Drawing on a qualitative interview study with Swedish audience members who publicly criticize news media, we argue that distrust is not only an attitudinal stance but also a performative practice shaped by identity, group belonging, and political strategy. Expressive distrust refers to signals of distrust that serve purposes beyond evaluating media performance – such as signaling cognitive virtue, reinforcing social ties, or influencing public discourse. Our findings show that individuals often articulate nuanced views of journalism privately while performing categorical distrust in public, leveraging it as symbolic capital and a tool for political contestation. Conceptually, this challenges linear models of trust/distrust and calls for incorporating performative dimensions into existing typologies. Recognizing expressive distrust is crucial for fully understanding the so-called crisis of trust.
Introduction
Trust research in media and communication studies has a long history (Hovland and Weiss, 1951) and interest in the topic has increased during the last decade (Fawzi et al., 2021). Despite the longstanding interest in the topic there remains a number of unanswered questions. Research has so far only been partially successful in identifying variables that consistently explain media trust and distrust, while evidence for the consequences of media trust and distrust also remain mixed (Jakobsson and Stiernstedt 2023, 2025). Another longstanding puzzle is that media distrust does not seem to lead to less media use, although this might be as a logical expectation (Tsfati and Cappella, 2003, 2005). It has been argued that the inconsistencies and puzzles might be related to theoretical and conceptual questions about how to define and operationalize media trust and distrust (Fisher, 2016; Ognyanova, 2019; Strömbäck et al., 2020).
The starting point for this paper is that the paradoxes and puzzles, in part, can be connected to the unstable and contextual nature of expressions of trust and distrust. Trust-talk can be used to refer to and express many different things (Jakobsson and Stiernstedt 2026b). In this article we focus on the performative dimension of distrust and how media distrust sometimes is used for the expression of matters related to one’s personal and social identity, as well as one’s political convictions. The aim of the article is to explore these different dimensions of trust/distrust empirically and theoretically by developing the concept of expressive distrust and contextualize this concept within broader developments. Empirically, the article builds from an interview study with distrusting news media audiences in Sweden.
Literature review
The paper is mainly a theoretical and qualitative empirical analysis of media trust/distrust, but since we argue that the conceptual development in the article also has implications for survey-based research trying to measure trust, both of these areas are included in the literature review.
Media trust is a willingness on the part of the audience to take a risk when acting on information provided by news organizations under the assumption that it is relevant and correct (e.g. Hanitzsch et al., 2018: p. 5). While rational choice perspectives understand trust as a relationship shaped by whether media meet audience expectations, socio-psychological approaches emphasize personality traits, and socio-cultural perspectives link trust to processes of culturation and cultural learning (Sztompka, 1999). Across these traditions, trust is generally assumed to be sufficiently stable and meaningful to measure through audience self-reporting.
Even while working from this assumption, media trust researchers have long acknowledged the ambiguity of what trust surveys actually measure (Knudsen et al., 2022; Tsfati et al., 2023). Changes in reported trust may reflect shifts in how audiences understand the concept itself, meaning stable trust levels can conceal changing interpretations of trust (Daniller et al., 2017; Strömbäck et al., 2020: p. 142). Moreover, inconsistent findings regarding the antecedents and consequences of media trust have made reliable correlates difficult to establish (Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2023, 2025), prompting efforts to develop new measurements and approaches (Kohring and Matthes, 2007; Mangold, 2024; Prochazka and Schweiger, 2019).
A contested issue in media trust research concerns whether trust is a unidimensional phenomenon or whether trust and distrust are related but distinct concepts. Luhmann (2017) argued that trust and distrust constitute different mechanisms for managing complexity, a view echoed in organizational research, where they are described as “separate but linked dimensions […] not opposite ends of a single continuum” (Lewicki et al., 1998: p. 439f). From this perspective, trust and distrust shape whether audiences rely on news media for information, both functioning to reduce the complexity of navigating a constant flow of news.
Previous research has shown that people may simultaneously trust and distrust news media (Engelke et al., 2019; Urbániková and Smejkal, 2023). Yet, the dominant perspective treats distrust as a lack of trust rather than a distinct phenomenon, an approach reflected in many survey measures of media trust (Fletcher et al., 2025; Hanitzsch et al., 2018; Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2025; Tsfati and Ariely, 2014). At the same time, scholars increasingly argue that distrust is more complex, distinguishing between skepticism—a critical and discerning stance toward news—and cynicism, a generalized rejection of all news media (Ahmed, 2023; Hameleers et al., 2022; Markov and Min, 2023; Park et al., 2024; Tsfati and Barnoy, 2025). While skeptics differentiate between outlets, topics, and reports, cynics assume in advance that all media are unfair and unreliable.
Below we dig deeper – both theoretically and empirically through a qualitative analysis – into the relationship between media trust and distrust. Engelke et al. (2019) suggest that trust and distrust are separate but linked concepts. While we agree on this and build upon previous research from other fields that also supports this notion (Lewicki et al., 1998; Luhmann, 2017), we add a performative dimension to expressing distrust, which we think has not been fully recognized in the previous literature.
Expressive distrust: Theoretical and conceptual starting points
The starting point of this article is the ambiguity surrounding trust and distrust in existing research. We argue that this ambiguity may not reflect flawed theory or methods, but rather an inherent feature of distrust itself. Trust and distrust concern what lies beyond certainty and are therefore often experienced ambivalently. Since George Simmel, sociological research has emphasized trust as a bridge between knowledge and ignorance, linking it to risk and uncertainty (Giddens, 1991; Luhmann, 2017; Simmel, 1950). Individuals may therefore express both trust and distrust simultaneously, without perceiving contradiction (Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2026b; Urbániková and Smejkal, 2023). We consequently approach trust and distrust as contextual, discursive, and performative phenomena whose expressions may shift independently of actual media performance.
We further argue that distrustful and skeptical stances toward media can be expressed in different ways and may serve functions beyond evaluations of news quality. Expressions of skepticism can vary in tone and intensity and may reflect self-presentation or attempts to influence others. Media distrust can thus carry a signaling function. We conceptualize this as expressive distrust, akin to expressive responding, where individuals endorse questionable claims to signal political allegiance (Schaffner and Luks, 2018).
We define expressive distrust as signals only loosely connected to evaluations of actual media performance, instead reflecting personal, social, or strategic motives. The concept emerged abductively through qualitative interview analysis informed by prior trust research. We argue that expressive distrust is essential for understanding trust and distrust more broadly, since it captures dimensions overlooked by conventional survey questions focused on levels of trust in media objects.
Method
This study is based on qualitative interview material. The interviewees were mainly recruited via social media. In the recruitment process we looked for individuals on Swedish-language Twitter/X and Facebook who use these platforms to criticize and express distrust toward Swedish news media. We asked these individuals if they are willing to partake in a research study and share their views on Swedish news media. Additional participants were recruited through snowball sampling and through advertising. In total, we conducted 97 interviews online, each lasting between 30 and 90 minutes. A majority of the interviewees are men, geographically dispersed across Sweden. The average level of education in the group is relatively high, and most participants hold well-paid jobs. This bias is likely due to self-selection. There are differences in the expressions of trust and distrust in the interview material with regards to e.g. gender, but we do not address these in this article.
Since a majority of the interviewees were recruited based on their public expressions of media distrust online, the group differs from the general Swedish population, where media trust is relatively high (Andersson, 2024). News media trust has however become more polarized over the last decade, with lower degrees of news media trust among people who vote for the right-wing radical populist party the Sweden democrats (Oscarsson et al., 2021). In this way Sweden is in line with the international trend which sees a connection between the global wave of right-wing populism and increasing media distrust (Fawzi and Krämer, 2021). A development that is spurred on by antimedia populist attacks on journalism (Egelhofer, 2023; Fawzi, 2019; Liminga and Strömbäck, 2023). We return to the salience of our interviewee’s political viewpoints in the concluding discussion.
The fact that the participants were recruited because they expressed media distrust on social media make the material particularly well-suited for exploring expressive distrust, since there is thus a public component to the interviewees distrust. At the same time, identifying expressive distrust in an interview setting is challenging, as expressive distrust involves strategic behavior. The fact that individuals consider it important to express media distrust on social media does not necessarily mean they find it equally important to express distrust in an interview context. The interview situation however allows for the exploration of differences between what participants say online and what they express in conversation.
In this article, we focus on a subset of the larger group of interviewees, focusing particularly on those individuals who during the interviews openly expressed distrust and skepticism towards the news media (N = 60). In the article we however only cite a handful of the interviewees, since the purpose is not to show how common expressive distrust is. The interviews that we focus on in the analysis has been selected because they are exemplary for demonstrating the concept. This means that the cited interviewees – more or less – openly discussed different reasons for expressing both trust and distrust and that they advertently or inadvertently revealed the strategic nature of expressing distrust.
The interviews followed a semi-structured interview guide, allowing room for follow-up questions. The guide included questions about participants’ upbringing, education, and professional background. It also covered media use, perceptions of news media, and views on media trust. Additionally, we asked about participants’ perspectives on politics, societal developments, and the future. All interviews were recorded and transcribed.
The study adopts an interpretivist approach, assuming that expressions of distrust are context-dependent and constructed in response to the social interaction during the interview. The interview format allows the interviewer and interviewee to explore the concept of distrust in a way which is ideally suited to analyse its performative dimensions. The study follows an abductive logic, iterating between theory and data to refine the concept of expressive distrust. The analysis was conducted by manually identifying discursive scripts that express media distrust and trust – for example, claims that news media are politically biased, or that news media present a distorted picture of Swedish society, and claims about instances when the news media are perceived as credible and truthful. These discursive scripts were then grouped together in overarching themes – e.g. lack of expertise, political bias – and analyzed in relation to the overall content of the interview, as well as in relation to what prompted the expression of distrust. For instance, we relate expressions of media distrust to participants’ self-reported media usage and to other expressions of trust and distrust throughout the interview. The analysis also considers how participants assign value to different expressions of trust and distrust – e.g. is trust considered naïve – and how the participants associate trust and distrust with particular social groups and characteristics.
A general methodological challenge in the social sciences is that individuals may say one thing while actually believing another, and that they may appear to change their views over the course of an interview. This may be due to a lack of clarity in their own opinions, but it may also reflect the interactive dynamic between researcher and interviewee – where not only the researcher seeks to gain something from the interview (information, knowledge, insights), but the interviewee may also seek to gain something from the interaction (Pugh, 2013). The interviewee may seek to present themselves in a favorable light, mislead the interviewer, or influence the research outcomes in a particular direction. In some cases, it may be rational for the interviewee to exaggerate or downplay certain attitudes or opinions. These methodological challenges are particularly pertinent in a study that attempts to distinguish performative statements from genuine statements. In our analysis, we reflect on our own relationship to the interviewees, as well as their relationship to us as interviewers, and use the relational character of the interview in the analysis. We have only included examples from interviews which we can credibly argue illustrate the expressive nature of distrust statements, because the interviewees themselves e.g. link their distrust to social mechanisms and forms of social distinction, reflect on the effects of their statements on others, make contradictory statements of trusting/not trusting. It is also important to keep in mind that the analysis below suggests that there is a performative or expressive dimension to the interviewee’s media distrust, not that this expressive dimension explains away any underlying attitudes or personality traits. In reporting our analysis, we have aimed to be as transparent as possible regarding how we use and interpret the interview data.
Findings
A skeptic is, as discussed above, someone who approaches the news media expecting that not everything that is reported in the news can be taken at face value and automatically accepted as true. The news provides, at best, a provisional picture of reality that awaits further confirmation. The reason behind the skepticism can range from vague ideas about how journalism work to real insights into how a newsroom function. Being a skeptic means that you do not reject and fully distrust the news media but also that you do not have grounds for fully trusting the news media. One of the interviews – Magnus, male, around 40 years old – illustrates this ambivalence: It is a very difficult question, what is included in the question about trust…I am just reading about how Ebba Busch [Party leader of the Christian Democrats] has squandered 6 billion…Do I trust that reporting? Not a bit. But I trust her [the reporters] good intentions. (Interview 45).
Magnus is a podcaster and one of the themes that his podcast returns to from time to time is media criticism. In our interview Magnus says that he wants to be someone “that is difficult and troublesome in the eyes of the news media” in the hope that this will lead to better journalism (Interview 45). In another part of the interview, he describes his public media criticism: “I am screaming my lungs out about media biases”. In the interview however he moves back and forth between exhibiting trust and distrust. At one point he says: So, it is like this, trust. Do I trust public service media? That is a damn difficult question. The thing is, I could probably say that I have high trust in public service media, even while being one of the most outspoken critics of public service media within this right-wing bubble. (Interview 45).
Here, Magnus states that he does trust the news media. He goes on to say that he has respect for the profession and the goal of journalism. He also states that he thinks that journalists generally strive to do a good job and that they do not have any hidden or malicious intentions. Apart from these general statements about media trust he also says that he is a frequent consumer of news media and acknowledges that, while no single outlet can provide a complete picture of reality, a broad media repertoire encompassing multiple perspectives can help form a reasonable understanding of society. While making these statements of trust he also however always follows up with a statement indicating the opposite, as seen in quote above where he describes himself as one of the most outspoken critics of public service media. It is evident that his trust is not easily expressed, and that he feels some reluctance in stating it. His public persona as a podcaster focusing on media criticism comes in conflict with some of the statements made during the interview.
The example of Magnus serves as good starting point for the analysis for several reasons. This example shows that it is possible for someone to experience trust and distrust at the same time, in such a way that it is difficult to express in full one’s feelings and reasons for experiencing the one or the other. Trust and distrust can exist in an ambivalent relationship. The example also show that a person can express this ambivalence in ways which prioritizes the one over the other and that the choice to prioritize distrust can be motivated by for example an ambition to effectuate change. The interviewee talks about how he seeks to influence both the functioning of journalism, media policy in Sweden, and the structure of the media industry in Sweden, and that he therefore is reluctant to express media trust. Finally, the example also illustrates that once a person has decided to prioritize distrust instead of trust, the expression of distrust can be very strong and seemingly exaggerated (i.e. “screaming” ones lungs out, not trusting “a bit” of the reporting, etc.), in relationship to the initial ambivalence.
The example above thus indicates that expressing distrust can have performative functions in ways that goes beyond giving an accurate presentation of a person’s propensity to trust or distrust. Below, we present additional examples while also analyzing the various motives that people can have for signaling distrust in this way. Not everyone does so with the intention of changing journalism or the news media in Sweden. There are also motivations related to personal identity, group affiliation, and political beliefs. The following examples illustrate different dimensions of expressive distrust.
Media distrust as a marker of identity
Torbjörn – male, around 70 years old, living in Stockholm – says that since he retired from work he has been much more active online and on social media. He has always been keen on discussing political matters but he now has more time to devote to such matters. He says that it has become part of who he is online to be critical of the news media, and public service media in particular. He also states that he is aware that online conversations have a life of their own and they often present things in an exaggerated way. The media distrust that is expressed online is partly ”over the top”, but that is also part of its charm. He says that he writes media criticism because he ”enjoys expressing himself in words” (interview 9). Expressing distrust is personally gratifying for Torbjörn and it is one way for him to construct and maintain a personal and social identity online.
That online media criticism can be socially rewarding is something that several interviewees mention, not the least since near and loved ones might not share the interviewees viewpoints, making online communities a more responsive environment. In these environments media distrust also takes on a particular form and functions as an identity badge, describing a particular way of relating to other people, media and politics. Here media distrust becomes a sign of superior knowledge and rationality, in contrast to trust, which is linked to gullibility, naivety and is even seen as a form of impairment. Nils – man, around 40, living in an affluent municipality in the middle of Sweden – describe people with media trust as handicapped: ”I know that a majority of the population are a bit handicapped and sheepish and follows what everyone else is doing […] they see a newspaper article and thinks that it is true, just because it is in a newspaper” (Interview 71). The sheepish nature of media trust can also be described as typical of Swedish culture and part of the national character, which the interviewees argue is characterized by uniformity and seeking consensus. Johannes, another man around 40 years old, says that Swedes almost thinks that it is one of the “laws of nature” that the news media are trustworthy (Interview 40). Media distrust is thus a way for some of our interviewees to stand out and distinguish themselves from others. It signals that they are different from the majority, which they regard as less knowledgeable. Among our interviewees, it is clear that expressive distrust can involve both assigning an identity to oneself and having such an identity assigned by others. Eva-Lotta, a 52-year-old woman living abroad, has low trust in the news media, is engaged in opposition to wind power, and believes that immigration issues are portrayed too positively in mainstream media. Yet, as she puts it, “if you say these things out loud, you are seen as a conspiracy theorist. (Interview 16, emphasis added)”
While being different from the majority the interviewees do not see themselves as strange, on the contrary they argue that it is something wrong with the majority. Sigvard – now retired, formerly entrepreneur and consultant – describe persons with automatic trust as a form of extremists: Extremist is of course within quotation marks, I don’t really want to use that expression, but there are people that only read the local newspaper and watches Rapport [public service news show] and think that they know everything there is to know (Interview 5).
Most people, the interviewees argue, exist in a sort of trust bubble which is made up of “correct” opinions and viewpoints, which are perceived as normal and natural, while in fact constituting an extreme and distorted view of reality. The interviewees, however, see themselves as having seen through the Swedish trust bubble, recognizing that it is the majority culture that is misguided. Only they – and the minority to which they belong – have understood how things really are. Their distrust of news media serves as a marker of this insight.
The interviewees cited above differ in their self-reported levels of media trust, but what they share is that none of them can be classified as pure cynics, at least according to themselves. All say that what is reported in the news is, for the most part, true – even if they are often dissatisfied with how certain issues are framed or prioritized. Sigvard, for example, states that in general he “has high trust for a lot of news reporting”. Despite this he talks about people’s “naivety” their lack of “critical thinking” and how you have to be a fool to not realize that the political left has “infiltrated journalism” (Interview 5). His strong opinions about the news media, it seems, has very little to do with the performance of the news media and more to do with how he sees himself and other people. Expressing strong distrust toward news media serves as a way for Sigvard to communicate who he is and what sets him apart from others. It is a key part of how the interviewees present themselves to us as interviewers.
Political positioning
Another motivation for expressing media distrust is, as already mentioned above (see the section about Magnus, Interview 45), the desire to bring about political change. Media distrust is not merely epistemic skepticism but becomes politically productive: a motivation for institutional reform, democratic redesign, or political realignment.
A recurring perception, recognizable both from public discourse and prior scholarship, concerns the view of mainstream news media as politically liberal or left-leaning. Among many of our informants, this perception was understood to contribute to a decline in viewpoint pluralism and to deprive large segments of the population of political voice and opportunities for influence. As one respondent expressed it, “if someone holds a different opinion, it becomes difficult to make it heard because of the way the media, public service, and political parties are structured” (Interview 7). For many of those we interviewed, the boundaries between politics (and political parties) and the news media were perceived as increasingly blurred, leading media criticism to be understood simultaneously as a form of political critique—and the media themselves as legitimate political adversaries. Importantly, several respondents also articulated a perceived need to expose and contest these perceived ties between media and politics. As one interviewee put it, the purpose of his media criticism was to articulate the “enormous dissatisfaction growing in Sweden,” which he associated with the close “connection between media and the state” (Interview 10).
Politically driven expressive media distrust can be based on both short-term tactical and longer-term strategic considerations. Åke – man, around 50 years old from Gothenburg, employed in a global trading company – has a strategic view on why the news media in Sweden needs to be criticized. When asked which Swedish news outlet he considers the best, he responds: “Even though I don’t like saying it, I have to say [public service media] SVT. But I don’t really like saying it. But I still think it’s probably the best. I have to say that”. Despite this acknowledgement – that the Swedish public service broadcaster provides the best news coverage – much of the interview is still devoted to criticizing SVT: “It’s pretty clear that when they report on the Left Party or the Green Party, it’s more positive. But when they report on the Sweden Democrats, it’s negative.” He concedes that the reporting has improved, attributing this to the left losing the control it previously held over Swedish politics. For Åke, the most important political struggle is over who controls the public conversation, and it is important for political parties and movements to influence news media reporting. Media criticism, he argues, is a way to influence both the public discourse and public service media – even though he generally trusts the news reporting. After all these years, he says, public service media has “listened to the criticism that they have received, that they are politically biased, and that they are hiding things […] in the future I think that the political right will have the power over the media in Sweden” (Interview 16).
It is common among our interviewees to describe the expressed media distrust and media criticism as part of not only political positioning – but of a political struggle. Elisabet, a 57-year-old woman from Linköping, articulated a version of the broader narrative concerning how news media are perceived to contribute to Sweden’s societal decline through what she described as an ongoing “Islamization” of the country. In her account, news media, politicians, and researchers were seen as having downplayed or sanitized the influence of Muslim groups in Sweden, a development she understood as posing a threat to women’s rights and gender equality. According to Elisabet, expressing such concerns risks social stigma and dismissal, making dissent difficult to voice without being labelled irrational or ignorant. These perceptions were also deeply affective and emotionally charged: I become both angry and sad. But I will continue spreading these things. The facts that exist [about an ongoing Islamization of Sweden]. This is factual. I do it so that my children and grandchildren will have a better future. But I can see what is happening—how things are becoming more restrictive for women. How it is normalized in advertising with hijabs and all that… I have fought my whole life for girls to be able to do whatever they want. I played football when I was younger. That was not self-evident then, but now things are going backwards. People are so naïve and do not understand it (Interview 76)
Similarly, Dennis – from the south of Sweden – reports having a strong interest in politics in general, and media policy in particular. He has previously worked in the media industry and holds many specific and critical views on Swedish media policy. Despite this, he believes that the public service media companies in Sweden does a good job given the conditions they operate under. He argues that the problem in Sweden is that the entire left–right political spectrum has shifted leftward. What would be considered a clearly left-wing opinion elsewhere is, in Sweden, often seen as centrist. Dennis thus believes it is important to change the coordinates of the political conversation in Sweden, and that this can be done, in part, through media criticism. “We need to start talking about the fact that we have a public service problem” (Interview 10). He sees it as important to act as a “blowtorch” to drive change and restore balance in the political discourse. Dennis views his media criticism from a long-term strategic perspective aimed at reshaping the political landscape in Sweden. He also expresses hope that the research interview itself might serve as a catalyst for change and as a way for him to contribute to a more accurate account of how the Swedish media landscape has developed and how it functions today.
Magnus (above) and Dennis thus use media distrust as part of their project to change Swedish media policy and the media landscape in Sweden. Åke and Elisabet also sees expression of media distrust as part of putting pressure on news media institutions and changing the public conversation. The interviewees are expressing distrust towards the news media for strategic reasons, aiming to control the political conversation and set the political agenda. This discursive battle is, as shown in the analysis, only semi-related to their personal opinion about the performance of the Swedish news media.
Discussion
This article has proposed expressive distrust as a performative mode of relating to the news that can be analytically distinguished from distrust as a (relatively stable) attitude or personality trait. The concept is motivated by recurring puzzles in the trust literature, e.g. that previous research indicates that a person can feel trust and distrust at the same time (Jakobsson and Stiernstedt 2026b); that trust and distrust cannot be easily placed on a single scale (Markov and Min, 2023), and that self-declared “distrusters” often consume as much or more mainstream news than others (Tsfati and Barnoy, 2025; Tsfati and Cappella, 2003, 2005). We argue that this puzzle – and the failure of media trust research to find reliable correlates for trust and distrust – do not only reflect problematic conceptualizations and methodological problems, but is also a reflection of the ontology of ambivalence that characterizes trust and distrust under uncertainty (Giddens, 1991; Luhmann, 2017). Furthermore, we argue that distrust has a performative dimension that has not been recognized in previous research. Our interviews reveal actors who articulate nuanced, even respectful, views of journalism while also performing strong distrust – often with clear identity, group, and strategic political goals. How trust and distrust become articulated throughout the interviews depends as much upon who the interviewees turn to – their imagined audience – and the context evoked by the interview, as upon their stated feelings and beliefs. They are furthermore indecisive what their “true” relationship to the news media is, even though they at times express this relationship in a way that is both categorical and self-assured. Below, we discuss the interviews and the findings from a broader perspective. First, we discuss contextual factors that might prompt expressive distrust and discuss why this concept is particularly salient to understand the so-called global trust crisis (Moran, 2022). We end the section by discussing the theoretical and methodological implications of the concept as such.
Expressive distrust as virtue and identity work
A central insight from the interviews is that expressing media distrust is frequently framed as a cognitive virtue – a marker of intelligence, independence, and critical autonomy. Several respondents contrast their own distrust with what they portray as the naïveté of mainstream audiences. This can linked to the third-person effect which in this context means that the interviewees ascribe strong media effects to other people, while they view themselves as unaffected by news media biases and framings (Perloff, 1999). This is only part of the story however as distrust here also becomes part of the interviewees self-presentation. Even though several of the interviewees say that they trust the news media, it is still important for them to incorporate media distrust as part of the story about themselves and what distinguishes themselves from others.
Several contextual factors can make this kind of identity work compelling. First, modernity’s reliance on expert systems means that trust is frequently a substitute for certainty, and claiming distrust offers a way to reclaim agency in the face of complexity (Giddens, 1991). Second, the critical distance towards online information and news media promoted by media literacy discourse, which has proliferated in Sweden as elsewhere as a consequence of moral panics around dis- and misinformation (Haider and Sundin, 2022), can be rearticulated as an identity badge. Third, in a platformized attention economy, contrarian stances and truth-telling is rewarded with visibility and status, fostering what Hong (2023) calls “fact signalling”: displays of epistemic sophistication that are as much about identity as about truth claims. Such postures also echo the populist epistemic repertoire that challenges established knowledge authorities (Fawzi, 2019; Ylä-Anttila, 2018). Role models for this identity performance include influencers, podcasters, and tech-entrepreneurial figures who legitimize the idea that journalistic institutions are too narrow or biased, and that competent citizens must look beyond them – a script that our respondents both cite and emulate (Hameleers et al., 2022; Hong, 2023). Our interviewees also mention and favorably quote people such as Elon Musk, Max Tegmark, Sam Harris, Lex Friedman. They also mention Swedish influencers such as Hanif Bali, Henrik Jönsson, Jens Ganman and Aron Flam. Some of these can be said to be part of a right-wing influencer network, whereas others are not as easy to pinpoint politically (Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2026a). What they do share however is that they brand themselves as contrarian thinkers, functioning as sources of inspirations and role models for the online milieu that they are a central part of (Howard, 2025). Taken together, these dynamics explain why expressive distrust as identity has likely grown: it confers symbolic capital (“I’m discerning”), travels well in online arenas that reward stance-taking, and fits broader political currents that valorize outsider knowledge (Ylä-Anttila, 2018). Importantly, this does not entail low usage of mainstream news or a dismissive stance towards the news media in private settings, but it does entail talking about news media through a posture of distance. It is likely that the social mechanisms described here are not unique to Sweden, as the discourses and the cultural context that such posturing is dependent on are salient across a much wider geographical context than Sweden and the neighboring Nordic countries.
Group belonging and the normalization of distrust
Expressive distrust is also relational. It binds communities by marking in-group boundaries (who “gets it” versus the credulous mainstream) (Marwick and Partin, 2024). Our material indicates that distrust is normalized in specific social formations: online communities on social media platforms; alternative media ecosystems: and politicized spheres where legacy media is symbolically positioned as a partisan actor. Even though our qualitative material only gives us a glimpse of these networks and ecologies our findings is line with other research in this area which show how antimedia sentiments are being produced and reproduced within right-wing milieus (Holt, 2023). This is also in agreement with work showing that media trust has polarized, with lower trust among radical right constituencies even in relatively high-trust countries like Sweden (Andersson, 2024; Oscarsson et al., 2021). The growth of such low-trusting groups is dependent on many different factors. Politically, mainstreaming of radical right-wing actors has expanded the audience and legitimacy of anti-media narratives (Akkerman et al., 2016; Fawzi, 2020). Communicatively, social media infrastructures enable rapid diffusion and affective reinforcement of anti-media scripts, including by elected officials who publicly attack journalistic legitimacy (Egelhofer, 2023; Liminga and Strömbäck, 2023). Expressive distrust also takes advantage of the hostile media effect, i.e. the tendency that those with strong prior commitments perceive neutral coverage as biased against their side, reinforcing group narratives of unfairness (Fawzi, 2019; Vallone et al., 1985). Cognitive mechanisms – motivated reasoning and identity-protective cognition – further encourage individuals to adopt group-congruent stances on media trust and credibility (Flynn et al., 2017; Kahan, 2016). In this ecology, performing distrust is not merely expressive, it also becomes a way to signal allegiance and earn status within one’s reference group. From this perspective it is possible that expressive distrust is more pronounced in high-trust environments such as Sweden, since in countries where distrust is much more widespread it becomes less of a distinguishing marker.
Political strategy and hegemony
A third strand in our findings is explicitly strategic. Respondents describe their public expressions of distrust, as a “blowtorch” intended to shift the political conversation and, in some cases, to reshape media policy. This is consistent with research that shows how populist actors deploy anti-media rhetoric to delegitimize independent journalism, portray it as partisan, and thus recalibrate epistemic authority in politics (Egelhofer, 2023; Fawzi, 2019). In Sweden, members of parliament have used social platforms to undermine journalistic legitimacy, showing that such strategies are accepted by the political (right-wing) mainstream (Ekman and Widholm, 2023; Liminga and Strömbäck, 2023). What our research indicate is that the political use of media distrust also exists outside of professional politics and political campaigning, among media skeptical online networks in Sweden that takes part on a grassroots level in a struggle for political hegemony.
Notably, this strategic performance is compatible with continued news use – indeed, it may demand it, as monitoring coverage is central to sustaining the critique (Fletcher et al., 2025; Tsfati and Cappella, 2003, 2005). Here the well-known paradox of the distruster-consumer is resolved: distrust is not a simple refusal to rely on the news, it is a weaponized style of engagement that leverages the news to contest its authority. Much of the content that our interviewees produce and consume on social media is mainstream media content that is recontextualized and reframed in such a way as to expose its supposed ideological biases and blind spots.
Theoretical and methodological implications
Conceptually, our analysis supports treating trust and distrust as linked but analytically separable dimensions (Engelke et al., 2019; Lewicki et al., 1998; Luhmann, 2017). Expressive distrust illustrates how attitudinal ambivalence coexists with performative certainty, depending on audience and context. It also suggests that existing typologies – automatic trust, media skepticism, media cynicism (Park et al., 2024; Tsfati and Barnoy, 2025) – can benefit from explicitly incorporating a performative axis that cuts across these categories. Individuals can be skeptical in cognitive style yet perform cynical distrust for identity or strategic reasons. Expressive distrust blurs the line between critical skepticism (normatively desirable according to research) and global cynicism (normatively corrosive), complicating the already difficult task of distinguishing them empirically (Markov and Min, 2023; Tsfati and Barnoy, 2025).
Methodologically, expressive distrust warns against treating self-reports as transparent. One suggestion to take expressive into consideration when designing research projects is to use multi-method designs that measure expressive responding (e.g., via incentives for accuracy or follow-up knowledge probes) (Schaffner and Luks, 2018), combine self-reported trust with behavioral traces of news exposure and engagement, and use interpretivist approaches to detect when distrust language serves identity/strategic functions. Another suggestion is that survey items should be sensitive to audience and context (e.g., “when talking to others online…”).
There are thus compelling reasons to further develop the concept of “expressive distrust” in order to deepen research on trust and distrust in news media and journalism (Supplemental material).
Supplemental material
Supplemental material - Expressive distrust: Rethinking what it means to distrust the news
Supplemental material for Expressive distrust: Rethinking what it means to distrust the news by Peter Jakobsson and Fredrik Stiernstedt in Journalism
Supplemental material
Supplemental material - Expressive distrust: Rethinking what it means to distrust the news
Supplemental material for Expressive distrust: Rethinking what it means to distrust the news by Peter Jakobsson and Fredrik Stiernstedt in Journalism
Footnotes
Ethical considerations
This research was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority, Dnr 2022-02283-01.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by The Swedish Research Council, grant number 2021-02154_VR.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
Under Swedish law and under the permit from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority it is prohibited to release the interview recordings or transcripts to any third parties.
Supplemental material
Supplemental material is available online.
Author biographies
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
