CPS Online Library Research Guide (UNH Manchester Library): Evaluating Social Media Sources

Evaluating Social Media - Introduction

This page  is set up to help you evaluate information provided by social media tools. It highlights the need to look at social media sources in a somewhat different way from how you evaluate more commonly used resources. The important point is that social media, for some types of research on specific topics, provides a fruitful and unique form of information, but it needs to be cautiously used.

Authentication

Source:

The first step is to try and determine whether the source is trustworthy starting with the following criteria:

• Identification: Does the source provide a name, logo, bio, description, link to official website or to other social media channels, or any sort of identification information? Would searching Google for this source provide more information about it?
• Number of Posts/Tweets: The bigger the number of posts/tweets the better, it provides a digital trace to check for bias, and validity of information provided, as well as the types of posts - intelligible, exaggerated, inconsistent, etc.
• Number of Followers/Likes: Does the source have a large number of followers or likes? If there are only a few, are any of the followers known and credible sources?

• Retweets/Shares: Do the source's posts/tweets get shared/retweeted by known and credible sources?
• Location: Can the source be geographically located? Are the events that this source posts about close in distance to its location? Try to find out during which periods of the day/night the source posts/tweets the most. This may provide an indication as to the source’s time zone.
• Timing: Is the source posting or tweeting in real time? are there any significant delays or any unusual aspects related to the timing of the posts?
• Social Authentication: Use your own social network–Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn–to find out if anyone in your network know about the source’s reliability.
• Media Authentication: Check if the source posts are quoted by trusted media outlines
• Engage the Source: Reply or send a message to the source asking for more information.

Content

If the steps above did not lead to a conclusion, try triangulating the content following the steps below:

• Triangulation: Are other sources reporting on the event you are investigating?  The more independent witnesses you can get information from the better and the less critical the need for identity authentication.
• Origins: Can the original source be identified and authenticated? If the original source is found, does the time/date of the original report make sense given the situation?
• Social Authentication: Ask members of your own social network whether the post in question is being shared/tweeted by other sources.
• Language: If the language used is too official, such as “breaking news”, “urgent”, “confirmed” etc., it needs to be scrutinized.
• Pictures: Does the photo provide any clues about the location where it was taken based on buildings, signs, cars, etc., in the background? same tip applies to posts with videos.
• Follow up: If you have contacts in the geographic area of interest, then you could ask them to follow up directly/in-person to confirm the validity of the information.

Information in this section are based on Meier's article How to Verify Social Media Content: Some Tips and Tricks on Information Forensics: http://irevolution.net/2011/06/21/information-forensics/

Accuracy Checklist

The great amount of information on social media makes it difficult to determine which of the information is accurate and authentic and which is not. The below checklist provides a number of questions to start with:

• Location of the Source: Are they in the place they are tweeting or posting about?
• Network: Who is in their network and who follows them? Do I know this account?
• Content: Can the information be corroborated from other sources?
• Contextual Updates: Do they usually post or tweet on this topic? If so, what did past or updated posts say? Do they fill in more details?
• Age: What is the age of the account in question? Be wary of recently created accounts.
• Reliability: Is the source of information reliable?

Checklist taken from Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins: http://guides.library.jhu.edu/c.php?g=202581&p=1335031