“Why do people pay less trust to public news online nowadays?”
— By Yanhe Zhu
Nowadays, the news around people is more transparent, offering people multiple choices to access the information they want. News media are responsible for sharing news with the public and leading social opinion, which has become an important way to stable social work. In a recent situation, online social media has become a mainstream of news reporting. Compared to the former way, social media offers more information resource people could engage. However, a recent social study in Times points out that public trust in online news declined to a low level significantly. People struggle to distinguish which news information is reliable and which is not. Consequently, credibility and news quality have been declining in some countries. Based on currency, I hypothesized that people's social media usage is responsible for low news credibility both online and offline.
People use the academic term "News Credibility“ to measure the level of trust that people pay.
What is the news credibility specifically?
According to Fletcher, R., and S. Park, who mainly study society information transmission, news informs citizens and enables civic engagement within democratic societies. Due to the long-established link between news and democracy, there has been much research on both the credibility and trustworthiness of news. In early studies, the credibility of the source was mainly studied within the context of persuasive media messages, with credibility primarily determined by the trustworthiness of the individual who created the message. Today, when people determine the perceived news credibility, they also consider the news organization's reputation.
news credibility is no objective standard
It's like a subject perspective depending on many factors, like a specific group of people or location. For example, a news media that gained enough credibility in one group might have a bad name in another specific group, like Fox News, which different political parties misjudge.
Sources people primarily get the news from (2022)
Today, most people count on social media and other digital sources to stay informed, but this doesn't mean they trust the information they get from them, a new survey suggests. There is a hugh contract between the social media resources and the TV news program.
People likely to chooce social media as their primary news resource because of convenience.
Journalism has been involving, looking back people used to consume the news through daily newspaper but now social media has been a game changer. Thanks to technology people could stay connected by one simple click on smartphone device. People and news organization are turning to social media platform because it’s convenient for growth and news comsumption.
To better understand the relationship between social media and news credibility, multiple factors contributed to low news credibility from public toward social media news:
Social media provide an environment where multiple news sources can choose from and various ways to share views.
The development of the Internet offers an open system for people to access without any extra cost. There are two main sources for online news reports: One distributed by traditional news media with their online platforms, like BBC News below, not only sets up platforms but also sets up an official account on social media platforms. Almost all traditional print and broadcast news providers now maintain online platforms. Professional reporter and maker team in traditional media collects news from various resources. Those websites and official accounts normally distribute news similar to their television report, and the information is trustworthy. Compared to conventional media, most news information comes from commercial news websites, the information they report most reship from traditional media or other various resources, and information is not confirmed. To catch the public's eye, commercial websites make up fake, arguable news to get page views.
2. News information can be transmitted easily through social media without confirmation
News information can be transmitted easily through social media without confirmation. Commercial websites have no right to write news information. To get user views, commercial websites compile other facts from various sources and edit them personally before they put them out. During editing, it's hard to maintain the original information accuracy and commercial website aiming to get profits instead of social impacts behind the information. One news report can upload as a short massage and spread in a short time on social media. According to a study from Science, it entails that fake news spreads faster than true news on Twitter—thanks to people, not bots. It means that most news consumer on social media have lack ability to identify the truthness of information, which contribute more sharing on social media with fake information.
3. Convenience of social media contributes to low news credibility
Most people prefer to choose social media as their resource to get information. The Internet offers people a way to transmit news information, like WeChat, email, blog, Etc. By using social media, people can access news sources easily. Additionally, the government cannot control its news trustworthiness through social media. Different groups of people and multiple transmitted methods always contribute to the media's illegal behaviors and irresponsibility, negatively affecting news credibility online
In conclusion, news credibility is affected by people’s social media usage by news transmission from multiple news recourses, including commercial companies and privates. Also, there needs to be an official procedure to identify the correctness of news information within social media. It is important to cultivate the news credibility for both individuals and society for the following reason:
1. Helping the public form the right core values and social responsibility
After people receive accurate information from news reporting, they will automatically filter whether it is right or wrong according to their life and world views. That positive information will be carried forward because it corresponds with most people's healthy minds. Further, that positive information will be spread twice, which will help the public to form positive and healthy core values.
2. Improving media’s social functions
The competition between news media companies is based on how well their social functions work. Those functions mainly depend on their media reputation, influence, and credibility. Those factors determine whether the company can be stable and competitive in news media marketing. Therefore, news companies are encouraged to work on their social function and improve it.
Thoughts
In the current climate of misinformation and disinformation, it is getting increasingly difficult for people of any age to separate fact from fiction in what they see, read, and hear. As a result, the information -- real or fake -- shapes the decisions that people make about their lives. It is vital to cultivate the news credibility of social media that they use to stay informed and identify the institutions they trust most to provide accurate information and keep people safe.