HCI-Research-Project

Trust in News

Sources

End Sem Presentation

**- Pratyanshu Pandey (2019101025)

  • Bhaskar Joshi (2019111002)**
Our Team
Bhaskar Joshi
Pratyanshu Pandey
pratyanshu.pandey@students.iiit.ac.in
bhaskar.joshi@research.iiit.ac.in
  1. Research Questions, Motivation and Methodology a. Advantages of Online News b. Research Methodology c. References/Reading Material
  2. Definitions a. What is Trust b. What does it mean to trust news c. Principles of trust
  3. Survey Results and Analysis
  4. Analysis and Discussion a. Trust Development b. Statistics for Trust in News Brands c. Statistics for Non-Mainstream News Usage d. Individual-Level Factors Predicting Trust in Media e. Comparison of Trust f. Results g. Level of Trust in news sources among first time voters h. Analysis i. Reasons for Mistrust j. Why continue k. The silver lining
  5. Conclusion
Contents:

Research Questions,

Motivation and

Methodology

1. Which sources do people use to get the news on the topic of elections (in

specific Lok Sabha 2019)?

2. Exploring trust in these news sources and its correlation with news

consumption from those sources.

3. Analyzing the reasons for the above phenomenon.

Research Questions

Online is the Future , and so with the advancement in technology ; we should also be prepared to advance accordingly and have a better HCI.

As we can see that Online consumption of news is advancing leaving behind Radio and it’s just a matter of time that it will leave behind TV and Print media in terms of consumption of news source and become the major factor. So it is our responsibility to study about it and be well prepared about its effects.

Motivation and Importance
  1. Reduced hierarchy : Internet reduces the hierarchy that characterizes traditional
journalism
  1. Direct Access to sources: In contrast to traditional reporting, which involves
journalistic mediation and interpretation of sources, connectivity allows direct
access to sources, which possibly works to increase the trustworthiness of the news
text.
  1. Interactive opinions: Unlike in traditional news, audiences are offered the possibility
of arguing with news texts and of challenging journalistic presentations of reality.
These interactive options have important implications for journalistic authority.
  1. Diversity: Internet offers a much more diversified menu of political information,
compared to the relatively homogeneous point of view offered by mainstream media
institutions. [9]
Advantages of Online News
  1. Literature Review of Articles, blogs and Research Papers ; especially the ones related to 2019 elections
  2. Analysing the Data and Statistics available from these papers
  3. Survey of people , by taking responses in Microsoft forms and Visualizing and Interpreting the result obtained [Survey-Response-Analysis]
  4. Interview people over telephone and analyzing interviews interviews that are available online.
  5. Analyzing all the data collected to gain insights and find reasons for trust/mistrust.

Research Methodology

[1] Aljazzaf, Z. M., Perry, M., & Capretz, M. A. (2010, September). Online trust: Definition and principles. In 2010 Fifth International Multi-conference on Computing in the Global Information Technology (pp. 163-168). IEEE. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224193095_Online_Trust_Definition_and_ Principles

[2] Aneez, Z., Neyazi, T. A., Kalogeropoulos, A., & Nielsen, R. K. (2019). India digital news report. https://www.reuterscommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/digital-news-repo rt-india-2019.pdf

[3] Das, A., & Schroeder, R. (2020). Online disinformation in the run-up to the Indian 2019 election. Information, Communication & Society, 1-17. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339829970_Online_disinformation_in_the_ run-up_to_the_Indian_2019_election

References/Reading Material

[4] FAROOQ, G. (2018). Politics of Fake News: How WhatsApp Became a Potent Propaganda Tool in India. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3dfc/fe65731c62902c35dbd45be1d9d25e49a839.p df

[5] Kalogeropoulos, A., Suiter, J., Udris, L., & Eisenegger, M. (2019). News media trust and news consumption: Factors related to trust in news in 35 countries. International Journal of Communication, 13, 22. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10141/

[6] Neyazi, T. A., Kalogeropoulos, A., & Nielsen, R. K. (2021). Misinformation Concerns and Online News Participation among internet Users in India. Social Media + Society, 7(2), 20563051211009013. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350824693_Misinformation_Concerns_an d_Online_News_Participation_among_internet_Users_in_India

[7] Article https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021/india

References/Reading Material

[8] Wilson, S., Leong, P., Nge, C., & Hong, N. M. (2011). Trust and credibility of urban youth on online news media. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 27(2). https://ejournal.ukm.my/mjc/article/view/

[9] Tsfati, Y. (2010). Online news exposure and trust in the mainstream media: Exploring possible associations. American Behavioral Scientist, 54(1), 22-42. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/

[10] Fletcher, R., & Park, S. (2017). The impact of trust in the news media on online news consumption and participation. Digital journalism, 5(10), 1281-1299. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21670811.2017.

[11] Statista Reports https://www.statista.com/statistics/1003542/india-trust-in-news-sources-among-first- time-voters/

[12] Reuters international world report https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2021-06/Digital_News_Rep ort_2021_FINAL.pdf

References/Reading Material

Definitions

Trust is the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the action of another party

based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to

the trustor, irrespective to the ability to monitor or control that other party. [1]

“The firm belief in the competence of an entity to act dependably,securely, and reliably

within the specified context.”

Trust is a composition of multiple attributes such as reliability,honesty,

dependability, security, timeliness, and competence,and different attributes have to

be considered in different environments where trust will be established.

What is Trust?

Trust in news consists of ability , integrity, and benevolence (the extent to which the

trustee is believed to intend doing good to the trustor, beyond their own profit motive).

Consumers of information can trust the sources if they have both the ability and intention

to deliver quality information.

To trust news is not only to believe that journalistic narrators are being honest and

accurate about what can be witnessed in the present, but that they possess reputations

for past veracity and can be expected to stay with the story wherever it might lead. [10]

What does it mean to trust news?

When we examine trust in news sources, some of the trust principles emerge. We mention those principles here: [1]

  1. Level of Risk - In present context the risk is moderate at personal level (not financial or very life altering) but high at a cumulative level (decides the government for next 5 years)
  2. Identity - Identity ensures history and recognition and allows building trust over a period of time. Identities help carry trust cross platform - eg from TV to Youtube and Mobile Applications
  3. Global and local rate - accumulation of local rate is global rate which gives us a way to measure trust.
Principles of Trust
  1. Trust Development Phases: [1]
a. Building Trust - An initial trust is formed based on a report/article/story or
a recommendation.
b. Stabilising Trust - Accumulation of experiences over time. If a news source
provides regular news with good quality and no complaints, it starts
accumulating reputation.
c. Dissolution - Declining trust due to accumulated negative feelings.
Principles of Trust

Survey

Results and

Analysis

Our Survey Results

The Major age group who responded to our survey were aged from 18- years

We got around 100 responses from
the mentioned age group which
consists of 69% male 30% female and
1% Others
Our Survey Results
Majority of people were
Undergraduate followed by
High School and
Intermediate and then
Postgraduate
Our Survey Results

From this graph we infer that majority of people feel they act neural in the Political Spectrum

As can be guessed from the previous graph,
majority of people have 5/10 understanding
of Politics
Our Survey Results
We see that most
Trusted sources are
print media , TV and
Twitter and radio
being least source of
news.
Also Most of the
Distrustful sources
of News are
WhatsApp and
Facebook.
Also emergence of
Various Mobile apps
for news is the new
trend.
Our Survey Results
Majority of people
feel news is
somewhat influenced
by politics and
government,
interestingly some
feel news is
independent from
govt or political
influence most of
time
Our Survey Results

Some identifiable news sources that people filled were: Aaj tak, CNBC for TV, TOI, The Hindu for news papers, TOI for mobile application. Zee news, times of india, amar ujala, dainik jagran, hindustan times, the hindu, news 24, aaj tak, Arnav Goswami Hindustan times newspaper, Zee news, Republic Bharat news. Aaj tak ,Rajasthan patrika ,dainik bhaskar, abp news, Inshorts

Survey Analysis

The survey was analysed by examining how trust varies by changing one of the variables and keeping others constant.

The major observations were:

  1. Trust in news is fairly independent of gender, political alignment or understanding of politics.
  2. Perception of undue influences in news decreases was correlated with declining trust in news sources across the board.
  3. Trust in traditional sources of news is very high and those sources are more identifiable and have a higher brand value and recognition.

Analysis and

Discussion

● For a new user, trust in a news source starts with his/her first piece of news from the source. If the piece is judged to be good the user will remember the source.

● As time passes the user is exposed to more news pieces from the source and if the quality of news is high and the source is not involved in any scandal, the trust in the source will also slowly increase and reach stability.

● But trust is dynamic and with every news piece it grows or diminishes based on the perception of the user.

● If with passage of time, a lot of negative reviews and feelings about news pieces accumulate, trust in the source goes to 0 and the user starts looking at alternative sources of news.

Trust Development (^) [1][Self Analysis]

This image shows
the usage of Top
Social Media
applications for
news consumption
(and for any other
purposes also).[7]
Statistics for Non-Mainstream News
Usage
The image shows
the usage of
social media
applications in
various countries
  • it’s the statistics for the non-mainstream news usage across the globe. [2]
Statistics for Non-Mainstream News
Usage

Individual-Level Factors Predicting Trust in Media (^) [5]

Comparison of Trust [5]

● Using traditional news sources (TV, print and their websites) and non-mainstream news sources (digital-born news websites, social media) are both associated with positive levels of trust in news.

● The score is higher for traditional news sources and significantly lower for non-mainstream news sources.

● Using social media as a main source of news is associated with negative score of trust in news.

● Perceiving the news media as being unduly influenced by political and business interests is associated with lower levels of trust in news.

Results (^) [5][Survey]

Level of Trust in news sources among first-time

voters

Interestingly, our
survey results
were similar to
the results on
Statista as shown
on the left. [11]

● Research has shown that those who do not trust the news media tend to rely more on their partisan predispositions and not on new developments when voting. [5][2]

● With time, such users do not update themselves with the ever changing outlook of the political party they support.

● Trust in news media is an important precondition for media to have positive effects for democracy.

Analysis

● Perception of a political or a commercial bias: ○ Perception that news outlets deliver “deliberately distorted information” and have their own political agenda or that are “overwhelmingly in the hands of the rich businessmen”. ○ The level of perception and reality is subjective.

● Corruption has strong trust-eroding effects in democracies.

● Media Commercialization: The increased knowledge of media ownership makes news users more likely to be skeptical about the credibility of news organizations.

Reasons for Mistrust (^) [5][Survey]

Journalistic Freedom: [Reflection]

Places with more free and unrestricted journalism experience higher levels of trust in users.

Unfortunately India lies very low in this ranking.

Reasons for Mistrust

Identity and Accountability:

● News provided by bigger organizations have more credibility simply because it
is in their favor to earn consumer trust to sustain business and misinformation
on their part is accountable by people as they will simply stop using the news
source.
● But in case of distributed platforms, if the platform offers anonymity there is no
fear of repercussions and people may endlessly create fake news. Even with
identity enabled, there is such a vast number of news creators that weeding out
those spreading misinformation becomes a difficult task.
● In cases of messaging services like WhatsApp, even though the news is passed
to you by a known identity, it is nearly impossible to find the creator of the
news and hold him/her accountable.

Reasons for Mistrust (^) [Reflection][Self Analysis]

Identity and Accountability:

Mainstream media also find it difficult on social media to make their brands visible and distinguishable.

In their unbundled news consumption, users are less able to identify the sources of a message and thus show lower levels of brand recognition and thus lower levels of trust.

Reasons for Mistrust (^) [Reflection][Self Analysis]

Statistics for Trust in News Brands
The image
shows the
“Brand Trust
Scores” for
different news
brands.
It is seen the
better the
brand, the more
it is trusted in
online platforms
too. [2]

Misinformation[4]:

Misinformation runs rampant on social media platforms especially WhatsApp. This is because of:

● Cost: Since fake news creation does not involve much research, production
costs—no reporters/journalists are send on the field for coverage—broadcast
expenses and licensing, the cost to produce fake news is much lesser than the
real news.
● Promotion: While news outlets might have to spend a substantial amount of
money, resources and time in the promotion of their brand and content, fake
news creators need no promotion.
● Anonymity: The origins of fake news are difficult to trace, there is no
accountability on what is being shared/forwarded.
Reasons for Mistrust

● Shelf life: A large number of posts shared/forwarded on messaging platforms like WhatsApp are not bound by time. They are historical or religious in nature and tend to reinforce myths, fear, misinformation and hate. This type content is recycled and keeps resurfacing from time to time. These media—unlike hoaxes, which are easy to bust—are tough to kill.

● Impact: Fake news is different from conventional news stories as it reaches users through a network close to them. The same information might reach the user from several individuals or groups, leading to reinforcement of the information. The user has the power to edit/ manipulate the content. The sender can twist the information so that it suits the palate of the user/s and meets his/her agenda.

● Reach: The news generated on social media also influences and becomes a part of the news shown on television and other traditional sources.

People are also afraid of getting into trouble for speaking against political groups. This means that misinformation campaigns run rampant even though a lot of people understand that the news is fake. [2]

It is evident that trust in social media and other non-conventional sources runs low. But still with every passing year the population on these sources keeps on increasing. This is because:

● Not all news sources are bad. There are still sources that provide deep and
detailed analysis of news.
● Some people are of the opinion that it is alright that news sources are biased as
long as there are other sources vouching for the other extreme of the
spectrum. This comparison gives them a better viewpoint of the event.
● In some cases these news pieces have become a source of entertainment.
Why continue?
[Self Analysis]

● With increasing technology penetration even in the poverty stricken parts of society, online news has become pervasive.

● Getting news in your regional language is difficult. Online sources may overcome those difficulties as they have multimedia content and there are also content creators that post news in the regional language.

● Getting local news within the city limits is difficult using TV. Mobile applications along with social media provides instant access to local news in local as well as english language.

● Online sources of news also provide several advantages mentioned before like diversity and customization.

Why continue?
[Self Analysis]
Echochamber [4][Reflection]:

People with like philosophies, ideas and political alignment seek similar people when they go on social media or other online platforms.

The advantage of online news is that it allows you to customize your news experience but this has a negative effect here as users get stuck in an echochamber where all the news they read is biased in such a way that is suits their dispositions.

Also because the user is involved in a community of like minded people these biases are just reinforced with time and the user continues to use the news source.

Why continue?

● “me-first collaboration”: People share links, tags, pictures, and eventually come together around a type. The need to be heard and acknowledged in peers or in public, the idea to keep loved ones updated about their surroundings and warn them about threats and keeping in touch with loved ones are the prime reasons why people forward media on WhatsApp

● Groups that you are part of on WhatsApp consist of close family members and people you are acquainted with. Even though you do not wish to consume news leaving group might become difficult in consideration of other people’s feelings.

Why continue?

● Twitter, facebook and other news sources have started screening news for fake content, but this opens another pandora’s box as to how this fake content is determined.

● Lot of websites, groups, channels are launched online solely for the purpose of debunking myths and any fake news.

● Some news sources have started deeper analysis and verification of the news before presenting it to the public.

● Users themselves have started verifying doubtful news using the above sources.

The Silver Lining
[Self Analysis]

Conclusion

Trust levels are high in traditional and more conventional sources of news. Their identity enables that this trust transfers over to other mediums when they switch.

Trust levels in non-mainstream sources like Facebook, WhatsApp etc. run low. But they are still positive as long as these sources are used as alternative sources.

Trust levels in non-mainstream sources becomes negative when they are used as primary sources of information.

Even though trust in news is at an all time low, steps are being taken towards improvement.

Conclusion

Thank You!

QnA?

We would want to thank Nimmi Rangaswamy Ma'am for providing

us her valuable time in form of in-person meetings and guiding us in

the steps on how to proceed.