“It’s All Fake News!”: How Perceptions of Misinformation and Disinformation Influence News Consumption Across Traditional Media, Social Media, and AI

Public trust in the news media has eroded in the United States. This study examines how perceptions of misinformation (PMI) and disinformation (PDI) affect the consumption of traditional media, social media, and artificial intelligence (AI) news, and whether this relationship is moderated by political ideology and media trust. Findings from a pre-registered experiment ( N = 637) revealed that PMI and PDI regarding traditional and social media news lowered intentions to consume news from traditional, social, and AI sources. We found no significant moderating effect of political ideology or media trust. The implications of the findings are discussed.