Consuming Hurricane-Related Media: The Protective Role of Perceived Trust

Objective: We examined whether perceived trust in media was associated with post-Hurricane Harvey traumatic stress symptoms and tested whether it buffered the association between hurricane-related media exposure and post-Hurricane Harvey traumatic stress symptoms. Method: A probability-based, representative sample of Texas residents, drawn from the GfK KnowledgePanel, were surveyed online three times: 2 weeks (N = 1,137), 6 weeks (N = 1,023), and 14 months (N = 748) after Hurricane Harvey (a Category 4 storm) made landfall in 2017. Measures included traumatic stress symptoms, Hurricane Harvey-related media exposure, perceived trust in that media, Hurricane Harvey exposures, and demographics. Generalized estimating equations were used to evaluate longitudinal relationships. Results: Among participants reporting high perceived trust in the early Hurricane Harvey-related media they consumed, the relationship between average daily hours of hurricane-related media exposure (reported 2 weeks postlandfall) and traumatic stress symptoms (reported at each wave of data collection) was weaker than for those who perceived low trust in hurricane-related media at both 6 weeks (beta = -0.35, 95% CI [-0.58, -0.13], p = .002) and 14 months (beta = -0.45, 95% CI [-0.70, -0.19], p = .001) postlandfall. Conclusion: Findings suggest that perceived trust in media may protect against traumatic stress symptoms associated with early media exposure when disaster strikes. Longitudinally, we show that these findings are consistent over time: Trust in disaster-related media coverage was associated with lower traumatic stress symptoms up to 14 months later among Texans who consumed high daily amounts of Hurricane Harvey-related news.