Trust in news on social media
Abstract
This paper investigates trust in news on a social media platform. The paper is motivated by the finding that social media is the primary news source for a large group of people, especially young adults. Considering the challenges posed by online misinformation and fake news, an understanding of how users quantify trust in news and what factors influence this trust is needed. In a study with 108 participants, German high-school students provided trust ratings for online news including quality media and fake news. The study shows that users can quantify their trust in news items and that these trust ratings correspond to rankings of the sources by experts. The paper finds that psychometric scales that measure interpersonal trust are predictive of a user's mean trust rating across different news items. We show how this can be used to provide interventions for those prone to false trust and false distrust.
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Prior experiences with and attitudes towards the trustee are essential antecedents of trust in information found on social media.
“People's prior experiences with and attitudes towards the trustee infuence their perceptions of that trustee and have been shown to be essential antecedents of trust in information found on social media [5,31,32,40,122].”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [40]
Multi-media and visual components invoke positive emotional sentiments among users, which contributes to increased trust in that information.
“This is because these components often invoke positive emotional sentiments among users, which contributes to increased trust in that information [13,40,56].”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [40]
Presenting information alongside the URL of the original source significantly increases people's trust in that information.
“In a number of studies, transparency has involved presenting information alongside the URL of the original source, which signifcantly increased people's trust in that information [5,13,24,25,40,109].”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [40]
In the experimental study [40], participants' general belief in trusting others can predict their trust rating of a Facebook post.
“The authors found that participants' general belief on trusting others can predict their trust rating of a Facebook post, and suggested interventions for those prone to false trust and false distrust.”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [40]
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- Authors
- Heuer, H., & Breiter, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Bremen (DE)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2018-09-29
- Pages
- 137-147
- OpenAlex
- W2892401976
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4
- FWCI
- 9.90
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Journalism and Media Studies
- Social Sciences › Communication › Communication and COVID-19 Impact
- Keywords
- trust in news, social media, fake news, misinformation, online news sources, trust ratings, interpersonal trust, psychometric scale, young adults, high school students
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