Social Media Sharing

Communication professor, Dr. Jason Turcotte's work on social media sharing was published in the September issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. The study has generated some buzz and was covered by Harvard University's Shorenstein Center. You can view the story here: (http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/social-media-sharing-news-opinion-leadership).

"The project was highly applied and fits well with the university's learn by doing mission, as the results can better guide how news outlets leverage social media,” says Dr. Turcotte.

The study used Facebook's API data to create an experiment testing whether news is perceived as more trustworthy when articles are shared through peers on social media rather than being shared directly through the news outlet. Researchers found that news sharing behaviors improve levels of media trust and increase the likelihood of following that news outlet in the future. The study is among the most trafficked; it is ranked in the top 5 percentile of all articles (http://wiley.altmetric.com/details/4079059#score).

The full article can be accessed at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12127/abstract.