Pandemic and the media: How risk information seeking influences media trust and emotions

Previous literature gave considerable attention to antecedents of health-risk information seeking, but few elaborated on its cognitive and affective outcomes, and how individual differences may influence this link. Based on a survey (N = 1743) conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we seek to interpret the influence of health-risk information seeking on media trust and emotions, and how methods of information processing moderate this link. Results demonstrated that COVID-19-related information seeking from the media decreased the belief that media distort reality, which in turn decreased fear; and increased the belief that media provide validity cues, which further increased calmness. The negative relationship between information seeking and the belief that media distort reality was stronger when heuristic processing was high, while the positive association between information seeking and the belief that media provide validity cues was strong only when systematic processing was low. Results contributed to information seeking studies by identifying the cognitive and affective outcomes of information seeking, and also lent insights to health-risk communication studies by showing how information seeking would increase media trust and positive emotions, and the moderating effect of information processing methods on media effects. • The media-distort-reality belief mediated between information seeking and fear. • The media-provide-validity-cues belief mediated between information seeking and calmness. • Information processing methods moderated the mediation pathways. • Lend insights to information seeking studies and risk communication studies.