ABSTRACT
Understanding perceptions of trust in or distrust of information sources is critical in the post-truth era. Current society has created a new communication environment that allows for different ways of developing (dis)trust and accountability mechanisms, especially considering how subjective this process is. Indeed, trust is linked to the subjectivity, intersubjectivity and objectivity expressed by individuals when interacting with others, as in public consultations. When considering science information channels and sources, certain aspects should be borne in mind. Firstly, analytically speaking, channels are often regarded and used as natural sources. Secondly, it is not easy to trace the direct sources from which citizens obtain science information. In this chapter, the results of a study performed on the different levels of trust, in particularly controversial topics, from a scientific, cultural and communication perspective, namely, climate change, vaccines, GMOs and CAM, are presented and discussed. The intention was to investigate the drivers of trust considering three dimensions: credibility, authority and legitimacy. It was thus possible to generate a model of how citizens choose public science information sources and channels, occupying different positions on the trust/distrust continuum depending on their country of origin.
