Null-coalescing operator - Which of the following do you prefer? [duplicate]

Question

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In your opinion what is more readable: ?? (operator) or use of if's

Let's say you have a method that checks is a list is null. If so, it instantiates it.

Generally, we'd do this:

if (StringList == null)
    StringList = new List<string>();

I've recently learned about null-coalescing operator and am tempted to change that to:

StringList = StringList ?? new List<string>();

It's more compact and looks like it'll be compiled to the same set of instructions as the 'traditional' method.

Probably a bit pedantic, but I was wondering if you have any reservations against such a method and which you'd actually use.