| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 傳播學院傳播碩士學位學程 === 107 === Social media allows users to provide real-time information to supplement remote news media reports and confirm the events and severity of damages during emergency disasters. However, the anonymity of social media and how users interact through digital displays causes some reporters to harbor doubts towards information from the internet, including trust towards social media users and their provided information. From the perspective of media dependency, the individual lacks sufficient information and must utilize information from mediums to remove doubt and complete goals, thus producing a reliance on mediums. Past studies show a correlation between medium reliance and trust so this study will introduce this structure in a preliminary exploration of how news reporters rely on social media to investigate disaster news as well as focus on reporter trust in social media.
This study utilizes in-depth interviews with 10 TV Journalist to understand their use of social media for social understanding, action orientation, and interaction orientation when reporting natural disasters in the phases of occurrence, rescue, and rebuilding; the interviews will determine the types of evidence obtained by TV Journalist through social media as well as their perception of social media technology and interpersonal trust beliefs. This study made 4 primary discoveries: first, TV Journalist relies on social media to obtain evidence as a solution to insufficient disaster information. Second, TV Journalist believe that image evidence can be used to compare against statements made by internet users as well as directly provide images of evidence; thus, there is a preference to use non-testimonial evidence from social media in all 3 phases of a disaster. Third, the interpersonal trust beliefs of TV Journalist towards social media are based on personal experience and professional knowledge. There is the belief that most individuals provide information based on goodwill and do not harbor motivations to misinform or falsify. Fourth, TV Journalist utilize technology trust beliefs as one of the 5 major functions they require for verification; Facebook is the only social media held by all 10 reporters and they all expressed a stronger sense of trust towards Facebook and view it as a required tool for verifying disasters.
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