I believe information plays an important role in our lives. With many options to get news today, who do we trust to get this information from?

Photo by: West McGowan

One of my journalism professors said this:

“Young people judge the validity of info by network of friends who passed it on, rather than by which media outlet broadcast it” (Dr. Kim, SUNY Plattsburgh).

As media consumers can we trust what our friends are posting via social media? I know some of my friends on Facebook and Twitter post news stories. A few of them post from the same source, while others post from a variety of sources. I have argued that media consumers should get their information from a variety of sources. Not necessarily because of media bias, but because each reporter will see and report on different things. I wrote about this in a previous blog post.

I also find it interesting to look at how people use social media. Some people use social media as a way to tell people what they are doing, connecting with friends, sharing news and interesting websites, and either a combination of those examples or using it differently all together. For me, I have always been taught to evaluate the source of information. If you get your news from your friends posting on social media should you consider their motivations for posting that article? Or should you consider the actual news source for information?

What are your thoughts on this?