By Bjarne Overkott
Social media is playing a major role in the run-up to the German parliamentary elections. Its influence is feared. But studies show that user behaviour is often problematic as well. This has implications for journalism.
Social media has revolutionised the news industry – and in the process, political education has gone dangerously astray. This is particularly evident in election campaigns, when platforms like X, formerly Twitter, reinforce political echo chambers, give space to disinformation campaigns, and favour extremist content. Instead of taking responsibility and regulating content, tech giants often justify their inaction by claiming to protect freedom of expression. The CEO of X, who doubles as an advisor to Trump, Elon Musk, is taking these dynamics to the extreme: he is courting far-right parties internationally and openly promoting the AfD. His influence, especially on young men, is enormous.
But it is precisely they, the users, who are surprisingly rarely mentioned in the discussion about social media and their influence on voting behaviour. Users are usually portrayed as victims, as puppets that are played and manipulated. The problem: more and more people are using social media as their primary source of news. This is a dangerous trend, as a study published in 2023 in the Journal, Digital Journalism, shows. This is because users often think they are better informed than they actually are.
A potential danger for democracies
In their paper, ‘Uninformed and Misinformed: Advancing a Theoretical Model for Social Media News Use and Political Knowledge,’ researchers Sangwon Lee, Edson Tandoc and Trevor Diehl examined how consuming news via social media influences users’ political education. They analysed both the influence on factual knowledge and the susceptibility to misinformation.
In 2017, Allcott and Gentzkow showed that social media plays a significant role in the spread of fake news. During the 2016 US election, Twitter was massively used by Russia to influence the political climate in favor of Donald Trump with fake information. 42% of links shared on social media led to fake news sites, while reputable news sources only made up 10% of links. These findings illustrate why experts see social media as a threat to democracy.
In the 2020 US election campaign, researchers Sangwon Lee, Edson C. Tandoc Jr and Trevor Diehl conducted two surveys with 752 participants – one before the election and one after. To ensure a representative result, they used stratified quota sampling. This procedure ensures that important characteristics such as age, income, gender or origin are proportionally represented in the sample.
Dangerous misconception that you are aware of everything relevant
The analysis of the data shows that the more people use social media, the less factual knowledge they have about politics and the more susceptible they are to misinformation. But what cognitive mechanisms underlie these relationships? Lee, Tandoc and Diehl examined two concepts in particular: the News-Find-Me-Perception and information overload. The News-Find-Me-Perception describes the feeling that it is not necessary to actively follow the news, since everything important is accessible via social networks anyway. Users rely on their filter bubble and increasingly refrain from using primary news sources independently. This leads to a dangerous passivity in dealing with information.
In ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow,’ Daniel Kahneman explains that our brains simplify information to process it faster. This simplification is based on so-called biases, such as the confirmation bias: people prefer information that confirms their own views and ignore or criticise opposing positions excessively. This tendency is amplified in social networks: we question messages from trusted contacts less, and the more often we see a piece of information, the more credible it appears to us. Platforms like TikTok, where snackable content – short, visually appealing content – is particularly successful, reinforce this dynamic. The problem is that many users do not engage in in-depth research to understand complex topics such as the Middle East conflict after consuming such superficial information.
In addition, many users tend to come across news by chance while scrolling through, for example, their TikTok or Instagram feed. News thus becomes a casual accessory and remains superficial. The result is a dependency on opinion bubbles that minimise the diversity of opinion and make it difficult to engage with information cognitively. The news-find-me perception explains why people feel well-informed despite not engaging adequately with the news, so often, they may not be.
Far too much information
Consuming news unconsciously and passively leads to another problem of social media: the overwhelming information overload. Most platforms present users with an unstructured mix of reputable news, misinformation, disinformation, personal content, and memes. In the early days of social media, researchers hoped that this diversity would contribute to a more positive flow of information – an expectation that has not been met.
Users who feel overwhelmed by the mass of information rely more and more on their social networks to filter information. “Those who are unable to process endless streams of information […] would rely on others in their social networks to filter the news information,” write Lee, Edson and Diehl.
The result is information overload. Users feel overwhelmed by the amount of information. This acts as an amplifier of the news-find-me perception: the constant stimulus from countless pieces of content causes users to relinquish responsibility and consume news more superficially. This makes them more susceptible to false information, as they trust in the reliability of their networks. Research impressively demonstrates the importance of strengthening media literacy – the ability to critically evaluate and independently classify information. Initiatives to promote media literacy could help to better prepare users for the challenges of the digital information age.
Journalism must change
Journalism faces the challenge of surviving in an attention economy without losing the trust of its audience. According to behavioral scientist, Jerome Bruner, stories are up to 22 times more memorable than pure facts. Narrative formats therefore offer the opportunity not only to convey facts but also to anchor them in the long term through emotional and visual elements. In particular, data journalism, which translates large amounts of information into vivid stories, is a promising approach to increasing reach in social networks, conclude Lee, Edson and Diehl.
But the key lies not only in attention but also in trust. Investigative journalist, Julia Angwin, sees potential here: journalists can learn from content creators who are successful on platforms like TikTok or Instagram. Transparency, active communication and closeness to the audience strengthen credibility. Just as social media creators laboriously earn the trust of their audience, journalists should not take this for granted.
Angwin calls for them to engage more with their audience. Stories should transparently present the research process and take the audience on a journey of discovery. It’s not just about reporting on people but also talking to them – whether on topics such as immigration or crime. Journalists need to talk to the subjects they write about and, in criminal cases, for example, spend just as much time talking to victims and perpetrators as they do talking to the police – if not more.
Interaction with the community for more trust
Furthermore, the former reporter at the renowned investigative foundation ProPublica demands that more resources must be allocated to community management. Media outlets must engage in direct interaction to create closeness. As is so often the case, the New York Times is a pioneer. Here, moderators select comments of particularly high quality, which are highlighted in a separate comments section. This promotes constructive discussions and provides an incentive to participate in them. At ABC Australia, the Innovation Lab is a whole department dedicated to deepening the relationship with viewers.
In Germany, too, there are already corresponding approaches. One example of how this can be done is Spiegel, which provides insights into journalistic work with articles on the “story behind the story.” But instead of explaining this afterwards, it might be more effective to integrate this transparency directly into the stories. Those who are suspicious of the media will not wait for the research to be explained. In contrast to the NYT, for example, the community is not actively involved either; it remains only a consumer.
The future of journalism lies not only in understanding the mechanisms of social media, but also in actively using them to disseminate trustworthy content. With stronger narratives, community-oriented work and consistent transparency, journalists can regain the trust of their readers and strengthen democracy. This is because it is only in a functioning democracy that truly independent journalism can take place.
This article, “Social Media: problematic platforms, problematic users” was originally published by the European Journalism Observatory on January 20 2025.