March 10, 2026
How news consumption and news discussion networks make a difference on information verification
Imagine you’re scrolling through your phone at breakfast. You see a headline that makes you pause ... "Is this actually true?" Do you Google it? Check another outlet? Ask a friend? Or do you shrug and keep scrolling?
We often consider verification as if it were purely institutional, wherein media professionals are expected to straighten up the facts. When it comes to the general public, information verification is usually thought of as an individual skill — the ability to assess the accuracy of information that we encounter. But in real life, none of us live in a bubble. We obtain news from multiple sources, and we talk about it with people in our social circles.
This raises an important question: How much do where we get our news, and whom we talk to about news, influence our information verification? We addressed this question in our published study, “A news ecology perspective to information verification: Examining the effects of news repertoire and news capital”.
In this study, we situate people’s information verification behavior in the context of their news ecologies: the mix of news sources people regularly use and the people they talk to about news in their everyday lives. To explore this, we surveyed 1,088 individuals in the United States who are representative of the general U.S. population.
Our survey data show that participants regularly get news from four or five news sources on average. Among traditional news outlets, the most frequently selected were CNN (55.2% of participants), The New York Times (48.1%), and ABC News (43.8%).Regarding social media, YouTube (78.8%), Facebook (66.3%), and Reddit (59.8%) were the most popular platforms for getting news.
In addition, participants typically talked with four or five people in their social circles about recent news. These discussants commonly included spouses or partners, friends, other family members, and coworkers, ranked by frequency.
More key takeaways:
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People’s confidence in their ability to verify information is a key driver of whether they actually engage in information verification.
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People who consume news from more sources, do so more frequently, and turn to sources with different ideological leanings are more likely to feel capable of verifying information, and thereby more likely to actually do it.
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People are more likely to verify information when they discuss it more often, with more people, and with others who have rich knowledge and diverse political views.
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Robust news discussions don't help on their own. They assist individuals in making sense of and evaluating news and information more carefully, which further strengthens their confidence and intention to verify information online.
Overall, our core findings highlight that people who live in information-rich and opinion-abundant news ecologies are better at information verification. Practically, these findings suggest that media and information literacy education should integrate news consumption habits and everyday news discussions as central components to enhance people’s verification efficacy and intention. We should encourage people to consume news from ideologically diverse sources, talk to those who hold different political views and stay informed about current affairs.
For more information about this study, email Lu at lu25@umd.edu. This project was supported by a 2024 Page/Johnson Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center.