The credibility of information on social media: the study of Iranian users

Abstract

Abstract By increasing social usage and increasing its popularity among different users, it is undeniable that social media become very influential today. Due to the impact and usage of social media, the credibility of information is an important issue for academic research. The subject of this research is to assess the credibility of information on social media by Iranian social media users. Considering the fact that many factors influence the credibility of information on social media, the selection of the most important factors influential factors has been very important in previous research. In this study, by analyzing data collected through an electronic questionnaire from 332 Iranian social media users, the most important and influential factors in the credibility of information were analyzed by the factor analysis for the first time; the results of this research showed that the six most important factors were the presence of editor and media reviewer, media appearance and design, media focus, message accuracy, message completeness.