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University of Florida

New study suggests that perceptions of trust may be shaped by our news consumption habits


  • The rise of social media means more people than ever have a “news finds me perspective,” meaning that instead of seeking out news they rely on social networks to keep themselves informed.
  • A new study from a UF researcher finds that this perception has a minimal effect on trust, as users with this mindset still tend to trust news editors more than their friends and algorithms.
  • However, they found that users with this mindset are more likely to engage with the news they see but are also less likely to scrutinize the news before sharing or interacting with it.

Today, more and more people believe important news will reach them online without their actively seeking it out. Instead, they believe “news finds me”, relying on algorithms and social networks for information.

A new study co-authored by University of Florida Assistant Professor of Advertising Yuan Sun, Ph.D., found that those who hold the news finds me” perception were more likely to trust the algorithm and more likely to consider their social media friends and algorithms as authoritative as news journalists and editors. Such a mindset may make people more likely to believe and share misinformation.

This perception is a relatively recent phenomenon, driven by the popularity of social media and, more importantly, their recommendation algorithms. Instead of checking news sites or reading the newspaper, those with the news finds me perception get their news secondhand from others, like their social media friends or through recommended posts on social media. There are different levels to the perception, with high-level individuals more likely to rely on these social networks to receive news than low-level individuals.

Sun served as the second author for this study, working with Mengqi Liao, Ph.D., an assistant professor University of Georgia, and S. Shyam Sundar, Ph.D., a professor of media effects at Penn State. Their study was recently published in the journal Social Media and Society.

Their goal was to compare users at each end of this news finds me spectrum using several metrics. Previous studies showed that individuals who rely on these perceptions more were less likely to scrutinize the news and news sources and more likely to assess misinformation as credible, but Sun and the team were interested to learn more about how these individuals assessed the news.

They went into the study with two key questions: Do users evaluate news differently when it is recommended by different sources? And more importantly, will the news finds me perception predispose social media news consumers to trust social media friends and algorithms more than professional news editors?

To answer these questions, the team recruited about 250 participants for a three-part experiment. The first was a questionnaire to get a sense of their level of reliance on the news finds me perception and to check for potential sources of bias. For the second part, participants were asked to interact with the Daily Times, a mockup of a news recommendation system created by the research team to mimic the behavior of social media algorithms and social networks in a controlled environment. After building a profile and interacting with news stories on the site, they were given another questionnaire and asked about their experience and demographic information.

Although participant answers indicated that their overall confidence in media was on the decline, they viewed news editors as more trustworthy news selection sources than social media friends and algorithms. This is likely due to a higher perception of authority.

Despite this, engagement with the news was higher when it was recommended by an algorithm, and users were less likely to scrutinize content recommended by an algorithm before interacting with it. These patterns were present among most users but were especially true for users with higher levels of news finds me perceptions. The exact reason for this pattern isn’t known for sure, but Sun and her team suggest that social media users may see others discussing a piece of news as an invitation to jump in and share their thoughts.

“By shedding light on why users form these perceptions, our study offers a new way forward for better mitigating its negative effects, such as reduced knowledge of public affairs and rampant spread of misinformation,” Sun and her team wrote. They also hope their study can be a launch point for further research, explaining that future studies could replicate their experiment with larger sample sizes or in cultural contexts outside the United States.