Abstract:
credibility on traditional and social media preference through the mediating role of individual perception about media. Furthermore, the moderating role of traditional and social media usage and gender are also investigated in the study. The data has been collected from the students (N= 1383) of seven metropolitan cities of Pakistan i.e. Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, Islamabad, Muzaffarabad and Gilgit Baltistan. The data has been collected using a survey based questionnaires. The data has been analyzed statistically, using SPSS. The reliability and validity tests were applied to validate the instrument. Statistical analysis like correlation, regression and bootstrapping were used to test the direct and indirect hypotheses. The findings indicate that traditional and social media credibility has a direct and positive relationship with individual perception and traditional and social media preference. Additionally, the individual perception mediates the relationship between the traditional and social media credibility and traditional media preference. Moreover, the moderation analysis shows that Social and traditional media usage moderates the relationship between Social and traditional media credibility and individual perception. The moderation analysis of gender between different variables also provided some interesting insight. The results indicate that in male media users the relationship is stronger than the female media users. The relationship between traditional media credibility and individual perception and
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predicted that the male has a stronger relationship. The results found a higher level of individual perception in male media users than female media users. Pakistan is a developing country where private news media and the social media networks are growing rapidly. In such situations, understanding about the individual's perceptions with reference to the media credibility and media preferences are becoming more complex. The present study adds to the body of knowledge in the area of media credibility and individual perception in Pakistan.
