It’s the person who shares a story, not the source of the news, that matters in gaining readers’ trust on social media, new research found.
Media Insight Project, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, interviewed more than 1,400 US adults from November to December 2016 to see how much faith people placed in news sources.
Each participant was shown the same article—”Don’t let the scale fool you: Why you could still be at risk for diabetes”—in a news feed that resembled that of Facebook. But the person who shared it and the original reporting source shown was different for each person.
Half of the participants were randomly shown a sharer they previously said they trusted—one of eight public figures who often share information about health including Oprah, Dr. Oz, and the US surgeon general—and the other half were shown a sharer they didn’t trust. (The study did not look at the impact of stories shared by respected friends, colleagues, or family members on social media.) Half the sample was also randomly shown the article was published by the Associated Press, while the other half was shown a made-up news provider, DailyNewsReview.com.
They were then asked to describe the piece of news. Half the respondents said the story got the facts right when it was shared by a public figure they trusted, compared to 35% who said the same when they didn’t trust the sharer. And the pattern held true for those who said the story was well-reported.
More:
https://qz.com/937590/for-casual-us-readers-the-person-who-shares-a-story-on-social-media-counts-for-more-than-the-actual-news-source/Interesting.
