Shifting Trust: Examining How Trust and Distrust Emerge, Transform, and Collapse in COVID-19 Information Seeking
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
During crises like COVID-19, individuals are inundated with conflicting and time-sensitive information that drives a need for rapid assessment of the trustworthiness and reliability of information sources and platforms. This parallels evolutions in information infrastructures, ranging from social media to government data platforms. Distinct from current literature, which presumes a static relationship between the presence or absence of trust and people’s behaviors, our mixed-methods research focuses on situated trust, or trust that is shaped by people’s information-seeking and assessment practices through emerging information platforms (e.g., social media, crowdsourced systems, COVID data platforms). Our findings characterize the shifts in trustee (what/who people trust) from information on social media to the social media platform(s), how distrust manifests skepticism in issues of data discrepancy, the insufficient presentation of uncertainty, and how this trust and distrust shift over time. We highlight the deep challenges in existing information infrastructures that influence trust and distrust formation.
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Recognizing and admitting uncertainty is important in risk communication to establish credibility.
“It is also noteworthy that prior research points out that recognizing and admitting uncertainty is important in risk communication to establish credibility [115].”
From Synthetic Lies: Understanding AI-Generated Misinformation and Evaluating Algorithmic and Human Solutions (2023) · cites this paper as [115]
There is a lack of consensus on the meaning of 'trust' in the context of social media.
“we lack basic agreement as to what trust means in the context of social media.”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [118]
Prior research has produced conflicting results regarding who and what strengthens trust in social media.
“the conficting results from prior research regarding who and what strengthens trust in social media”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [118]
Trust in social media has diverse impacts on people's behaviors and attitudes.
“the diverse impacts of trust on people's behaviors and attitudes [16,39,118].”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [118]
Prior research has shown that qualitative research can uncover subtleties in assessing the meaning of trust and how trust is formed in social media.
“Prior research has shown the subtleties that can be uncovered using qualitative research when assessing the meaning of trust and how trust is formed in the context of social media [118].”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [118]
Trust in information found on social media, users, and platforms does not necessarily remain static and instead changes and develops over time.
“However, given that trust in the information found on social media, users, and platforms does not necessarily remain static and instead changes and develops over time [118], it is essential to evaluate the evolution of a relationship between the trustor and trustee and the long-term efects of trust.”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [118]
If users have seen a large amount of misinformation on social media, they could lose trust in that particular platform.
“For instance, if users have seen a large amount of misinformation on social media, they could lose trust in that particular platform [118].”
From What Do We Mean When We Talk about Trust in Social Media? A Systematic Review (2023) · cites this paper as [118]
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References 72 · Cited by 37
- Authors
- Zhang, Y., Suhaimi, N., Yongsatianchot, N., Gaggiano, J. D., Kim, M., Patel, S. A., Sun, Y., Marsella, S., Griffin, J., & Parker, A. G.
- Affiliations
- Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
- Northeastern University (US)
- Emory University (US)
- William & Mary (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2022-04-27
- Pages
- 1-21
- OpenAlex
- W4225725851
- Cited by
- 37
- References
- 72
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5
- FWCI
- 47.02
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Communication and COVID-19 Impact
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Public Relations and Crisis Communication
- Keywords
- trust in information, distrust, social media, crowdsourced data, uncertainty communication, data discrepancies, crisis information, information infrastructure
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