Social media cues and news site name: What do they mean for online news perception?

Abstract

Using Sundar’s MAIN Model, a 2 (sharing applications: present/absent) × 2 (news platforms: blogs/traditional newspaper sites) × 4 (stories) experiment with college students found news stories on traditional newspaper sites have more perceived credibility and quality but not newsworthiness and likability. Social media sharing applications’ presence alone did not influence news perception, suggesting a potentially important role of associated number of shares. Sharing applications also sometimes may work differently on blogs versus traditional newspaper sites.