Survey: Users trust social media as news source

Voter trust in political information from Facebook, Twitter and other social media services is now on par with that in traditional news sources, according to a new survey.

Recent years have seen candidates increasingly devoting time and resources to developing their social media presences, with President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign widely admired by experts in both parties for its massive data and analytics operation. The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management/ORI survey finds that those campaign efforts are well-placed — social media in some form has reached a critical mass of adopters across age groups, is widely used for sharing political content and is just as well-regarded as traditional news outlets like television, radio and print. The survey finds that nearly two-thirds of voters reported that political information on social media was either higher quality or on par with traditional media outlets. For users younger than 25, 71 percent put the same or greater level of trust in content.