Who to Trust on Social Media: How Opinion Leaders and Seekers Avoid Disinformation and Echo Chambers

Abstract

As trust in news media and social media dwindles and fears of disinformation and echo chambers spread, individuals need to find ways to access and assess reliable and trustworthy information. Despite low levels of trust in social media, they are used for accessing political information and news. In this study, we examine the information verification practices of opinion leaders (who consume political information above average and share their opinions on social media above average) and of opinion seekers (who seek out political information from friends and family) to understand similarities and differences in their news media trust, fact-checking behaviors, and likeliness of being caught in echo chambers. Based on a survey of French Internet users (N = 2,000) we find that not only opinion leaders, but also opinion seekers, have higher rates across all three of these dependent variables. We discuss the implications of findings for the development of opinion leadership theory as well as for social media platforms wishing to increase trust.