News Distribution and Sustainable Journalism: Effects of Social Media News Use and Media Skepticism on Citizens’ Paying Behavior

ABSTRACT News organizations require sustainable business models with reliable revenue streams to perform their intended function in liberal democracies. Since the digital transition, however, many citizens have considerably shown high reluctance to pay for digital content, consequently jeopardizing journalists’ watchdog role and substantially eroding media independence. Based on a two-wave panel survey from the United States, this study seeks to investigate the antecedents of readers’ paying behavior for news, focusing on the role of social media news use and media skepticism. Findings reveal that users’ frequency of social media news use is associated with future paying behavior, while higher levels of media skepticism significantly inhibit readers’ payment. The analyses also show that while those reporting low media skepticism are initially more inclined to pay for news, high levels of social media news use function to largely overcome this gap. The study argues that the role of social media in delivering news should be redefined in light of the new paid content strategies implemented by news organizations.