Credibility of news content in the age of fake news: the case of Madrid Community

Summary

This research explores the attitudes toward news consumption to determine the elements that constitute the credibility of news and to understand the reasons that explain the degree of trust in news from the media and online news from other sources. Four mixed discussion groups were held, with parity between men and women, with an average socioeconomic structure, residents of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, and frequent Internet users. According to the findings, trust in a media is the main factor in assessing whether a news item is credible. The participants were aware of the existence of fake news on the Internet, which they considered intentional, and which they mainly located on social networks. It also appears that distrust of the news is fought by contrasting information in various media, which favors a diverse informational regime.