Does presenting credibility labels of journalistic sources affect news consumption? New study finds limited effects

It is not possible to shift the consumption of news away from low-quality sources or reduce belief in widely circulating inaccurate claims among average internet users, but it is possible to improve the news diet quality of the heaviest consumers of misinformation.

The researchers found that a majority of people rely on credible sources of information, with two-thirds avoiding unreliable news sites.

NewsGuard, a browser extension that rates news and other information sites in order to guide users in assessing the trustworthiness of the content they come across online, was the focus of the study.

While it is encouraging that most of us rely on credible sources of information, there are many who turn to sites of questionable trustworthiness, which raises concerns about misperceptions people may hold.

The researchers encouraged a random sample of more than 3000 online participants to install the NewsGuard browser extension in order to see source-level indicators of news reliability. Different shield symbols are placed in-feed to provide visual summaries of sources.

• Green shield = reliable source
• Red shield = unreliable source
• Gray shield = source with user-generated content
• Gold shield = satire

Survey data was collected over two time periods to measure the effect of source labels.

The researchers collected digital trace data to measure the quality of news consumption by a small group of people. The NewsGuard ratings shown to study participants as they encountered news links in their browsers were used to create these quality measures.

Exposure to misinformation and online fake news can increase belief in misperceptions, heighten cynicism toward politics, lower trust in the news media, and increase disdain for supporters of the other political party. Research shows that expert source ratings can influence the perceived truthfulness of an article.

The researchers tested whether in-feed source reliability labels can counteract these effects by shifting news consumption from unreliable to more reliable sources, increasing trust in mainstream media and reliable sources, and/or mitigate political polarization and cynicism.

In order to measure whether source reliability information affects belief in misinformation as well as in accurate claims, the respondents were asked to judge the validity of five widely circulating statements about the Black Lives Matter movement.

The results showed the following:

• A majority of people have reliable media diets: Most people (65 percent) did not visit any unreliable news sites before the study began, a finding consistent with the authors' previous research. In fact, only 1.5 percent of respondents relied extensively on unreliable sources for news.
• Source credibility labels had no impact, on average: In-browser credibility labels did not measurably shift online consumption from unreliable to more reliable sources, failed to significantly alter misperceptions of widely circulated inaccurate claims about COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, and did not alter trust in the media generally.
• However, source labels made a difference for those who consume the most low-quality news: There was a noticeable improvement in the overall credibility of news sources visited by those who began the study with the lowest news diet quality, according to NewsGuard scores.

Andrew M. Guess, a faculty research affiliate at CSM, says that source credibility labels may not be powerful enough to counteract misperceptions among the general public when attitudes about news sources are strongly correlated with partisanship. The tool is not effective because it does not work for the overall population. It means that it must be part of a larger toolkit to combat online misinformation.

The other authors of the paper were a professor and a professor in the Department of Biology and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The co-directors of the organization are Tucker, Nagler, and Bonneau.

More information: Kevin Aslett, News credibility labels have limited average effects on news diet quality and fail to reduce misperceptions, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abl3844. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abl3844

NewsGuard wasn't involved in the design or funding of the research.

Journal information: Science Advances Citation: Does presenting credibility labels of journalistic sources affect news consumption? New study finds limited effects (2022, May 6) retrieved 6 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-credibility-journalistic-sources-affect-news.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.