There was a series of focus group discussions Reuters Institute did on how people view the news the encounter in the media.
The report “Listening to what trust in news means to users”, prepared and published by the international news agency Reuters, shows that, in general, the public is quite resistant to believe in news shared by social media, such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
According to the results, “Most people had little confidence in the information they saw on digital platforms, but the judgment on different outlets often depended on the previously formed opinion about the brands they found there”.
In other words, people rarely believe what they read on social media. And, when judging whether the information is true or false, they consider the credibility that the newscaster has outside the internet.
To achieve this result, Reuters, in partnership with the global research company YouGov, conducted dozens of interviews on four continents. Part of these interviews were carried out with groups of people; another part was individualized.
“Although we are unable to make statistical generalisations about how all people in a given country think about news using this approach, we are better able to grasp the context around how people form their views and why,” reports the study.
The result is that, in the UK, as in the other countries studied, the public, in general, does not know or seek knowledge on how news is produced, what routines and forms of investigation a newspaper uses or who the journalists responsible for the report are.
On the other hand, real importance is given to the vehicle that is transmitting the information. If the company is well regarded outside the internet, it also has credibility on the internet. People seek independent and impartial journalism, but they do not seek to know the editorial line of the newspapers they read.
Furthermore, the format in which the information is presented is very important.
Finally, the large spread of fake news on the Internet has often questioned the credibility of the news read out there. In fact, people try to avoid getting information there, although the practicality is very attractive.
“For audiences without existing preferences (positive or negative) about news organisations in their country, making sense of the abundance of information online could be challenging or overwhelming,” the report states. Because many perceived digital media as places awash in unreliable, divisive, and even dangerous information, there are clear trade-offs involved for news organisations that seek to appear in such venues in order to attract and engage with new audiences.
Questioning the news you receive online is the first great step to avoid becoming a victim of fake news.
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