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Media Credibility In Social Media

Decent Essays

Surveys indicate that in 2016, most Americans, 62%, used social media to access news (Pew Research Center, 2016). Nearly 80% of American journalists use social media (Lee, 2015). Social media has become a source for both creating and obtaining news (Yamamoto, Nah, & Chung, 2017). As technology changes how people receive news, it also changes how they evaluate credibility (Lee, 2015). Research into media credibility has evolved over the years, a simplified definition of media credibility might be believability, accuracy, and trustworthiness (Calvo-Porral. Martínez-Fernández, Juanatey-Boga, 2014). Media credibility focuses on the believability of the news channel. Source credibility focuses on the senders of the messages (Bucy, 2003).
Several theorists have posited in the evaluation the perception of credibility. The current study aims to concentrate on methods social media users may develop to evaluate the credibility of the news they access online as well as how familiarity affects the user’s perceptions of credibility. Research indicates that social media users evaluate credibility based on familiarity with the brand (Calvo-Porral. Martínez-Fernández, Juanatey-Boga, 2014). In other words, if a social media user is familiar with The New York Times, they are more likely to trust the news posted on social media if it comes from the New York Times. Brand familiarity allows social media users to quickly examine logo, site presentation, and grammar to help them

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