The Breaking News Effect and Its Impact on the Credibility and Trust in Information Posted on Social Media

Abstract

The development of social media has triggered important changes in our society and in the way consumers read and trust online information. The presence of consumers in the online environment exposes them to a greater extent to various instances of fake news, which are spread more or less intentionally. Sensational and breaking-news-style information are one of the ways in which consumers’ attention is attracted, by posting exaggerated or distorted information. The objective of our research is to determine the impact of sensational and breaking news headlines on content credibility. In a mediation model, we show that the perception of sensationalism mediates the relation between the presence of breaking news headlines and trust in the content of the information. Based on our proposed model, the existence of breaking news headlines increases the consumers’ perception of sensationalism and reduces trust in news content. These results have important implications for patterns of news consumption. If a piece of information is presented in a sensational way, it might attract more consumers’ attention in the short term, but in the long run it will reduce the credibility of its content. Based on our research, we recommend using sensational headlines with caution to maintain credibility.