Facebook friends may sway trust in news

It’s who shares it that often proves more important than source

Your trust in news shared over social media may depend more on the person who shared the news than the news source itself, new research suggests.

The results suggest opportunities for news organizations in building strong online followings — and challenges for social media in countering fake news.

An online sample of 1,489 U. S. adults participated in the experiment, conducted by The Media Insight Project, a collaboration of the American Press Institute and The Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Each was sent a simulated Facebook feed item about health news, shared by one of eight public figures, all known to share health news. Among them were Oprah, Dr. Oz and the surgeon general of the U. S.

Half of the study participants got the post from a sharer they earlier said they trusted, the other got it from a sharer they didn’t trust.

Also, half of the participants got a version of the post attributed to The Associated Press, while the other half got a fictional source, the DailyNewsReview . com.

Those who got the news from a person they trusted were more likely to say the story was well- reported, correct and contained diverse points of view. For instance, 51% of those who got news from a trusted sharer said the information was well- reported and trustworthy, while only 34% said so if they got the news from a nontrusted sharer, according to the study’s results, out Monday. Trusted sharers influenced outcomes in other ways, too. When the story is passed on by a trusted figure and the article was attributed to the AP, 52% of respondents said the article got the facts right. When the article was attributed to the AP, but the person passing it on is less trusted, only 32% say the facts were right.

When a trusted sharer’s post had the fictional news source, people were still more likely to think the article was accurate ( 49%) than when a non- trusted sharer forwarded the post from the AP ( 32%).

The researchers suggest that online news consumers may not even recognize the trusted sharers’ influences. In another Media Insight Project survey last year, 66% said when viewing news on Facebook, the news source had a lot of effect in their trusting the content, while only 48% said the person sharing the news effected trust.

“The sharer tends to have a greater significance on attitudes than the news organization that reported the article in the first place,” the researchers said. “The reporting source still matters, according to the experiment, just not as much as who shared the article.”

When participants got the post from a trusted person, they were also more likely to recommend news sources to friends and to follow the news source on social media and sign up for alerts.

In the experiment, each person was sent a simulated Facebook feed item about health news.

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