Proximal Influence vs. Institutional Power: An Empirical Study of Podcasts, Trust and Public Opinion

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle, the threat of “fake news” has dominated headlines and ruptured the already frangible trust in legacy media. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in media across the globe remains at historically low levels. Yet amidst this climate, the podcasting industry has emerged as a stronghold against media scepticism, creating an “audio trust halo” (iHeart Media, 2022) that attracts audiences who seek comfort, entertainment, and truth from kindred voices. This thesis critically examines the nature of media trust in the post-truth era, investigating the factors that facilitate the establishment and fortification of bonds between podcast hosts and listeners, and the opportunities such relationships present for remedying the fragmented trust in mass media.

Employing a triphasic mixed-methods design, this study combines survey, interview, and case profile data analysed through thematic analysis, content analysis, exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis to identify predictors and effects of podcast host-listener trust. The research presents the Host-Listener Trust Model, a system that illuminates the inputs, outputs, and outcomes of the perceived and largely unspoken intimacy between podcasts hosts and their audiences. It uncovers the extent of influence these hosts have over listeners, and the implications for audience attitudes, opinions, and behaviours, particularly noting weaponised parasocial authority. The conclusions draw upon Sztompka’s (2000) concentric circles of trust, Turner’s (2009) “demotic turn,” Enli’s (2015) “authenticity contract,” Fairclough’s (1989, 1993) warnings of “synthetic personalisation,” Euritt’s (2023) podcasting intimacy, and Habermas’s (1989) “illusion” of the private sphere, while challenging dominant narratives about parasocial relationships (Horton and Wohl, 1956).

The result is the uncovering of a tacit society, a network of coexistent realities where trust is a transitory commodity, the concept of “mass” media is dismantled, and the future of widespread information exchange relies on proximal interpersonal influence rather than institutional power. This study contributes to commercial and scholarly knowledge by reimagining discourse around media trust and providing an empirically supported framework, the Host-Listener Trust Model, for understanding mediated audience relations in the podcasting era.