Vaas de Wit, a journalist and former media and journalism student at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC), has been awarded an NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) grant for the humanities. De Wit will be undertaking a PhD programme alongside Tim Groot-Kormelink and Damian Trilling (Vrije Universiteit), supervised by ESHCC lecturer Nel Ruigrok. The research focuses on trust in (alternative) media.
In the digital age, people have access to a wealth of news and information. Whilst general trust in the media is declining, people continue to rely on non-institutional sources of their own choosing. This project investigates how and why that trust arises and develops in practice. By analysing how people use, compare and evaluate news in their daily lives, the project demonstrates how trust is continuously built up, adjusted and, at times, abandoned. The aim is not only to gain a better understanding of media use, but also to provide tools to strengthen reliable information and facilitate constructive dialogue between different groups.
