Interpersonal and Mass Communication: Matters of Trust and Control

Abstract: The proliferation of information technologies in our modern society offers an incentive to investigate various aspects of communication. This study is meant as a preliminary comparison of trust and control between interpersonal and mass communication. Drawing on the treatment of modernity and postmodernity, I investigate how individuals perceive their own action versus both friends’ and other people’s actions across two types of information sources -- the radio and a friend -- and types of messages -- going to a concert and going to a restaurant. These messages were chosen for similarities – both are enjoyable experiences – and differences, as we might expect various levels of expertise across sources on these topics. Data was taken from a college vignette study, and levels of trust in the content of the message were found to vary across sources of information, and a weak gender effect is evident when analyzing differences between perceptions of self and others’ actions.

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