“Research is showing that more & more people are paying attention to the comments posted at the end of an article than to the article itself."
It turns out, organizing online comment campaigns is a common political strategy — both nationally and in Washington state. And researchers say the practice can be effective at swaying voters.
A study by researchers at the University of Delaware found that voters are far more influenced by what others say about politicians on Facebook than what the candidates say about themselves.
The lead author of that study, Paul Brewer, said he thinks a similar effect can play out in the comment sections at the end of news stories: People will most likely put more stock in the readers’ comments than what a candidate says in the article.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that more people read the comments, but they might be more influenced by the comments,” said Brewer, a professor and the research director at the university’s Center for Political Communication.
“The basic idea is we trust information more if it comes from a third party,” he said. “If I am a candidate and I say something great about myself, people are going to discount that, because it’s in my best interest.”
“You might think a thoughtful reader or viewer might say, ‘Well wait, where is this third party coming from, what is their point of view?’” Brewer said. “But we’re often not thinking about that.”
Leslie Stebbins, author of “Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth,” said the internet is flooded with fake comments on restaurants, hotels and products — and people often believe them.
Stebbins said that level of blind faith likely extends to online comments on news articles as well.
“There is a lot of research about the fact that most people tend much more to believe what they think are comments coming from everyday, average people,” Stebbins said. “They trust that much more than experts, and we see that across the board with restaurant reviews and hotel reviews and so on.”
Comments that disagree with a news story also can color certain people’s perception of the news media, Stebbins said. She cited a recent study that found that user comments can make readers perceive an article as biased.
Additionally, repeated comments saying the same thing can persuade people that whatever they are saying is true — a phenomenon known as “proof by repeated assertion,” she said.
“If you have dozens of people saying, ‘This reporter is crazy,’ I think that would sway people,” Stebbins said.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/politics-government/article152056057.html
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