Is Social Media Making Us Distrust the News?
Jack Sherrick, Catherine Johnson, Varit Bhanijkasem, Sophie Husseman, Arlo Hettle, Siena Leone-Getten
Distrust can feel pervasive when reading the news in the current political climate. Fake news stories abound and populist actors can reach millions of people with a single tweet or post. These trends have come about in part because of the rapid rise in social media as a news source.
These podcasts report data collected by the Pew Research Center to offer a better understanding of trends in social media usage and its impact on the American public. We encourage you to think about your usage of social media news and how it is changing your viewpoint of the world.
At what point should regulatory powers, be it the government, Facebook, or users themselves, step in to stop the spread of lies? What would this intervention look like?
We don’t have the answers to these questions but this report shows that they are worth considering.
Data from the Pew Research Center database