Abstract: This study aims to describe and analyze some important researches about the Western mass media credibility. All the researches could be divided into two main tendencies: that of focus on journalism media, and that of on the audience. Researches belonging to the two tendencies would be subdivided and summed up in order to describe the condition of the research about the field. The two tendencies contain five main categories: the investigation about mass media credibility, the behavior of the journalism, the individual differences of audience, the impact of interpersonal communication, and the audience involvement. Based on the five categories, the direction of further research in China's mass media credibility can be deepened by reviewing existing researches.

Key words: madia, public, mass media credibility