Most of us get our news from a variety of sources. We read, digest and analyse the news to shape our opinions as well as help us make decisions about how to invest, where to travel, what to wear and who to support in an election. Social media can influence our decisions given that many users receive news from sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, and others. According to a widely cited 2016 study by Pew Research Center, approximately 62% of adults in the United States receive the news through social media [1]. The Pew Research Center study was based on a survey conducted from January 12th to February 8th, 2016, using nearly 5,000 members of the Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel. The social media platforms users are most likely to get their news from are Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. Since 2013, nearly 50% more Americans are getting their news from Facebook, however, during the same three-year period, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn also experienced an increase in the number of users getting news from their websites.
Before taking these headline figures and drawing conclusions, it's also important to look at pre-election data which dispels post-election myths.
Myth: fake news sites are damaging established news outlets
Objective journalism isn't going away, it's just having new competition in an evolving landscape where people digest more news online and have a great deal of choice. However, trustworthy news outlets do appear to have an edge. According to a 2016 study by the Media Insight Project, at least two‑thirds of Americans rate a news outlets accuracy as being "extremely" or "very important" to them. "People who place a higher importance on a variety of specific factors related to trust are more likely to pay for their favorite news sources (28 percent vs. 20 percent), to share content (55 percent vs. 32 percent), and follow favorite news sources on social media (40 percent vs. 26 percent)" [2]. The more established news outlets are arguably engaging in similar 'click-bait' type of headlines as the fake news sites in order to coerce site visitors to read articles, which facilitates greater advertising revenue. The concern among the public should be that established news sites will now greatly employ tactics such as sensationalist headlines and opinion tainted articles which compromise the unbiased and factual commentary that should be at the heart of journalism.
Myth: everyone reading Facebook news thinks it's factual
Before jumping to conclusions on the degree of the impact of social media, it's important to look at other studies conducted on the subject. According to research by the Media Insight Project, just 12% of people who get news on Facebook "say they trust it a lot or a great deal. At the high end, just 23 percent say they have a lot or a great deal of trust in news they encounter on LinkedIn" [2]. So what do users look at to determine what to trust on social media? 66% percent of Facebook users look at the trustworthiness of the news organization itself that created the piece. Thus, trust in a news outlet is gained over time and fake news sites may or may not be recognized as trustworthy by Facebook news readers to cause. However, some users may be more likely to believe the news based on the number of years they've used the internet and their age group. According to a 2009 biological study from the University of Iowa, the authors of the study provided the following analysis - "In our theory, the more effortful process of disbelief (to items initially believed) is mediated by the vmPFC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex), which, in old age, tends to disproportionately lose structural integrity and associated functionality," they went on to further explain - "Thus, we suggest that vulnerability to misleading information, outright deception and fraud in older adults is the specific result of a deficit in the doubt process that is mediated by the vmPFC." The fact that individuals are more likely to vote as they age certainly supports the assumption that elderly voters influenced by fake news sites on social media could have had an impact on the election over their younger counterparts, who are about 50% less likely to vote by comparison [3].
Myth: we should worry about social media negatively influencing elections
When there is a winner and a loser, 'negative' becomes a highly subjective statement depending on which side you supported. With the prevalence of the internet usage in the US, it is likely that people are finding and sticking to online news sources which result in a confirmation bias, rather than seek news sources which go against what they believe. Social media enables people to connect with individuals who have similar beliefs and values, thus they can easily share news online with their peers more effectively to greater impact. Validation is a very powerful rewarding mechanism and it's easiest to get it from those who already agree with you. Opposing beliefs in U.S. politics have become too adversarial where either due to ego or distrust, neither side is willing to compromise to reach solutions. The polarizing effects of social media can be of concern as dialogue remains one-sided and people are less likely to interact and share ideas with those of opposing viewpoints.
Myth: social media sites will clean up and we will never have another presidential election like 2016 ever again.
Social media sites account for billions of dollars of online advertising money being spent each year. Any change in a social media company's online advertising business model or policies will likely be slow and methodological to not impact the site's revenue. Thus, people shouldn't have high expectations of fake or misleading news sites to be pulled completely from social media. Another interesting fact is that internet usage among US adults aged 65 or older is growing at the fastest rate when compared to other younger age groups [4]. These older demographics are more likely to be republican registered voters [5], which is another reason why news delivered via social media may potentially have a greater impact on U.S. presidential elections if a higher percentage of gullible and older users are getting a high dose of false stories.
[1] http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/
[2] https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/trust-news/
[3] https://www.grad.uiowa.edu/news/2012-08-16/why-are-elderly-duped
[4] http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/06/26/americans-internet-access-2000-2015/
[5] http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/12statab/election.pd