Who to Trust on Social Media: How Opinion Leaders and Seekers Avoid Disinformation and Echo Chambers
Open accessAbstract
As trust in news media and social media dwindles and fears of disinformation and echo chambers spread, individuals need to find ways to access and assess reliable and trustworthy information. Despite low levels of trust in social media, they are used for accessing political information and news. In this study, we examine the information verification practices of opinion leaders (who consume political information above average and share their opinions on social media above average) and of opinion seekers (who seek out political information from friends and family) to understand similarities and differences in their news media trust, fact-checking behaviors, and likeliness of being caught in echo chambers. Based on a survey of French Internet users ( N = 2,000) we find that not only opinion leaders, but also opinion seekers, have higher rates across all three of these dependent variables. We discuss the implications of findings for the development of opinion leadership theory as well as for social media platforms wishing to increase trust.
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Exposure to diverse media and political engagement can counteract the tendency to choose content that aligns with existing opinions, reducing echo chamber risks.
“However, as Dubois et al. [65] notes, exposure to diverse media and political engagement can counteract this tendency, reducing echo chamber risks.”
From A systematic review of echo chamber research: comparative analysis of conceptualizations, operationalizations, and varying outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
The survey by Dubois et al. found that political involvement and media variety reduce the risk of being in an echo chamber.
“The survey by Dubois et al. [65] found that political involvement and media variety reduce the risk of being in an echo chamber.”
From A systematic review of echo chamber research: comparative analysis of conceptualizations, operationalizations, and varying outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
Greater media diversity reduces the likelihood of echo chamber formation.
“Greater media diversity reduces the likelihood of echo chamber formation, as studies such as Boulianne et al. [16], Dubois et al. [65], Jones-Jang and Chung [68], Burnett et al. [69], found only minimal indication of echo chambers when examining the complete multimedia environment.”
From A systematic review of echo chamber research: comparative analysis of conceptualizations, operationalizations, and varying outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
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- Authors
- Dubois, E., Minaeian, S., Paquet-Labelle, A., & Beaudry, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Dubois, Elizabeth
- Venue
- Social Media + Society
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-04
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 2
- ISSN
- 2056-3051 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3017781087
- Cited by
- 105
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 15
- FWCI
- 15.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Social Media + Society (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Keywords
- opinion leaders, disinformation, echo chambers, fact-checking, news media trust, trust in social media, political information
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