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2018, Vol. 20(8) 2745­–2763
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framework

Edson C Tandoc Jr
Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Richard Ling
Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Oscar Westlund
University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Andrew Duffy
Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Debbie Goh
Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Lim Zheng Wei

Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Abstract
Through an analysis of relevant literature and open-ended survey responses from
2501 Singaporeans, this article proposes a conceptual framework to understand how
individuals authenticate the information they encounter on social media. In broad
strokes, we find that individuals rely on both their own judgment of the source and the

Corresponding author:
Edson C Tandoc Jr, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological
University Singapore, 31 Nanyang Link, 637718 Singapore.
Email: edson@ntu.edu.sg
2746 new media & society 20(8)

message, and when this does not adequately provide a definitive answer, they turn to
external resources to authenticate news items.

Keywords
Authentication, credibility, fake news, news, social media, truth, verification

Introduction
In the afternoon of 11 November 2016, the Singapore Civil Defence Force dispatched a
fire engine and a Red Rhino vehicle to the Water Terraces apartments in Punggol, follow-
ing online reports that the complex’s upper storeys had collapsed (Ng, 2016). A photo of
the complex showing the upper floors of some flats caving in had gone viral. But two
hours later, the country’s Housing and Development Board clarified on its Facebook
page that the photo was just an “online hoax” (Ng, 2016). The report that had gone viral
turned out to be fake.
This is not an isolated incident. Fake news stories have been going viral around the
world, misleading thousands of readers and, in some instances, even political leaders. In
the United States, President Donald Trump’s supporters cheered when a fake story that
Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, had endorsed Trump’s candi-
dacy went viral (Silverman, 2016). In Pakistan, the defense minister tweeted a threaten-
ing response to a false report that Israel had threatened Pakistan with nuclear weapons
(Goldman, 2016). The problem has prompted various sectors to start interventions to
combat fake news. Facebook and Google have rolled out mechanisms to flag question-
able posts (Wakabayashi and Isaac, 2017). In the United States, schools and libraries
have started media literacy trainings for students (Boyd, 2017). In Europe, not only have
several news media mobilized to report about fake news, but public institutions, such as
the European Union, have mobilized groups to work against misinformation (Scott and
Eddy, 2017). In Singapore, the Minister of Law announced in Parliament in April 2017
that the government was seriously looking into addressing the problem of fake news
(CNA, 2017).
With the widespread growth of not only digital journalism but also non-professional
and unreliable information publishers, the boundaries between professional and non-
professional news content have become increasingly difficult to distinguish. Nowadays
many different social actors, both within and beyond legacy news media, use digital
technologies for the production and distribution of news. Emerging technological
affordances have enabled audiences to do more with the media, and consequently the
relationships between actors and audiences have changed (Lewis and Westlund, 2015).
With a wealth of information flowing via an array of personal, portable, and interactive
devices, people are offered great opportunities to orient themselves about what news is
out there. But faced with an increasing amount of erroneous information, do audiences
know how to authenticate news reports they encounter online?
Now, more than ever, citizens are in critical need of media literacy skills when navi-
gating information, especially in the context of social media platforms, where patterns of
distribution are complex due to the news-sharing habits and algorithms at work. These
platforms, which allow easy and quick sharing of posts, have facilitated the spread of
Tandoc et al. 2747

fake news. By providing every user with a potentially mass audience, social media plat-
forms have broken traditional journalism’s monopoly over news production and distribu-
tion (Hermida, 2011; Tandoc and Vos, 2015). But this also meant the spread of raw
information without traditional vetting from journalists, spreading the onus of authenti-
cation to news audiences. Thus, there is a scholarly need for assessing existent literature
as well as developing plausible conceptual frameworks accounting for audiences’ acts of
authentication that can be applied to future empirical research.
This article proposes a conceptual framework to understand how individuals authen-
ticate the information they encounter on social media. We find that individuals rely on
both their own judgment of the source and the message, and when this does not ade-
quately provide a definitive answer, they turn to external resources to authenticate news
items. These more active authentication strategies can include intentionally seeking
information from their social sphere or other institutional sources. Alternatively, verifi-
cation can be incidental. Verification can simply arise from the process of interacting
with friends or consuming media.

Literature review
This section focuses on three distinct yet interrelated areas of research: trust and credibil-
ity, epistemology on the production of news versus non-authenticated forms of informa-
tion, and news consumption and personalized communication on social media.
The first section reviews literature on perceptions of credibility and trust. Whether an
individual processes a piece of information depends, in part, on whether that information
is perceived as credible and trustworthy. The second section focuses on the role of the
news media in authenticating information. A key marker of the news media is their
knowledge production processes, that is, how they apply certain standards, norms, and
methods to ensure that what they publish is reliable news. The third section focuses on
the appropriation and use of social media in news consumption, discussing its growth,
and also the different forms of personalized communication this has enabled, which have
implications on how individuals authenticate the news items they come across.

Trust and credibility

The concept of trust is multidimensional, which has led to a wealth of definitions, but
most involve an individual made vulnerable by an uncertain situation, relying on the
competence, dependability, integrity, and reliability of another person or a system to
overcome that vulnerability and move forward to act (Ogonowski et al., 2014). In socio-
logical terms, it has been seen as “the chicken soup of social life” (Uslaner, 2002: 1) and
as the glue that holds society together as it enables people to act in uncertain situations,
while distrust, the obverse, leads to atomization of society (Lewis and Weigert, 1985). It
is a heuristic which allows people to act because they assume certain effects will follow
their actions and other effects will not. Trust in the media is one such heuristic, based on
the belief that news items are dependable, competent, and have integrity. Individuals
have, in the past, not expended cognitive energy on assessing individual news items for
these characteristics; the heuristic of trust was sufficient.
2748 new media & society 20(8)

Trust has been considered as an important component of credibility (Hovland and

Weiss, 1951). Defined as the extent to which an individual perceives a stimulus to be
believable, credibility has been explicated as a function of three dimensions: message,
medium, and source (Hu and Sundar, 2010; Kiousis, 2001; Metzger et al., 2003). Message
refers to the content of a communication process, medium refers to the platform through
which it was sent, and source refers to the actual or perceived source of content. While
research on credibility initially focused on the credibility of the source in interpersonal
communication, it expanded as mass communication researchers also examined media
credibility (Metzger et al., 2003). However, messages in the context of both interpersonal
and mass communication also have inherent characteristics that make them more or less
credible (Metzger et al., 2003). Thus, studies have also focused on examining message
credibility.
Message credibility has been defined as “the extent to which an audience believes a
message” (Roberts, 2010: 45). It has also been explicated to refer to “an individual’s
judgment of the veracity of the content of communication” (Appelman and Sundar,
2015: 63). In the context of information credibility, Flanagin and Metzger (2000) used
the following dimensions to operationalize credibility: believability, accuracy, trustwor-
thiness, bias, and completeness. Message credibility plays an important role in persua-
sion (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). It is also particularly important in the context of news
(Meyer et al., 2010). News audiences’ “ability to effectively and accurately discern cred-
ible from unreliable information” is important because information can shape attitudes
and lead to particular behaviors (Metzger et al., 2003: 296). Thus, studies have also
examined factors that affect people’s perceptions of message credibility.
Many studies focused on the impact of source. Theories of persuasion have also iden-
tified source credibility as a heuristic cue used in evaluating a message (Chen et al.,
1999; Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). For instance, the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) of
information states that a message will be perceived as credible when the source is per-
ceived as credible (Kang et al., 2011). Relying on a credible source lessens a user’s
cognitive load in evaluating a particular message (Chen et al., 1999). This is particularly
important in the context of social media, where users are confronted by information
overload. For example, focus group discussions conducted in the United States found
that online users tend to “minimize cognitive effort and mitigate time pressures through
the use of heuristics” (Metzger et al., 2010: 434). This includes relying on their interper-
sonal connections in their evaluations of the information they encounter (Metzger et al.,
2010), as well as relying on institutions, such as the news media, in verifying information
about the world around them (Metzger et al., 2003). Indeed, journalism thrives on trust.
Since audiences trust the news media to provide them with authenticated information,
the news media ideally cannot flourish if they are perceived as not credible.

The production of news

The field of journalism works to maintain its position as a trusted source. It has devel-
oped an approach and an industrial culture focused on its ability to produce and publish
authenticated and fact-based news, among other journalistic outputs. Newspapers as well
as television and radio broadcasters have well-established positions in many societies
Tandoc et al. 2749

with regard to authenticated, fact-based reporting on important events in the world. Such
legacy news media employ professional journalists, imbued with a sense of professional-
ism, who engage in an epistemological news production process that is seen by many as
providing reliable news. Legacy news media are among the most influential knowledge-
producing actors in society. Indeed, this has been their role since the development of
wire-services in the mid-19th century.
What then, from an epistemological perspective, characterizes legacy news journal-
ism as we know it? In general, the journalists of institutional news media apply profes-
sionalized standards, norms, and methods in their news production processes. Thus, in
the best of cases, the knowledge and facticity claims articulated by journalists in their
news reporting are based on a process in which journalists and editors strive to determine
that the news they publish is sufficiently reliable so as to merit publication (Ekström,
2002; Ettema and Glasser, 1987, 1998; Godler and Reich, 2012). It has been held that
offering accurate news is a prerequisite for news journalism to gain legitimacy in the
eyes of the consumers. This is a central element in the functioning of a democracy
(Ekström, 2002). Unfortunately, the ideal does not always correspond to reality.
Recent years have seen a decline in public trust in the news in many countries, such
as the United States (Gronke and Cook, 2007). Thus, from studies of media credibility,
scholars have also focused on media skepticism, which refers to the “subjective feeling
of mistrust toward the mainstream news media” (Tsfati and Cappella, 2003: 506). In an
age of continual news feeds, many news organizations tend to focus on speed at the
expense of accuracy (Stepp, 2009). This is particularly the case when stories from com-
peting information producers start going viral. Some suggest this happens not only
because of failing advertising income, that news media of today have fewer journalists in
their workforce, but also because they are very keen on being quick in publishing news.
They have become more dependent on making users “click” on their news stories in
order to generate advertising revenues (Scott, 2017). Researchers have also brought to
light that professionalism as seen in, for example, fact-checking is threatened because it
is demanding and complex (Compton and Benedetti, 2010; Uscinski and Butler, 2013).
As more news is consumed via social media platforms, such as Facebook, the ques-
tion arises of the effect on trust and credibility: Ceron (2015) found that news consump-
tion from news websites was associated with higher trust in political institutions, while
consumption of information on social media was associated with lower trust. Conversely,
other scholars observed that people show greater trust in news associated with their
immediate social circle (Turcotte et al., 2015). The use of social interaction to validate or
authenticate news items is, therefore, likely to be significant. This is particularly salient
in the context of social media, where an increasing number of individuals now get their
news from.

News on social media

The legacy news media have invested significantly over the last two decades in devel-
oping digital journalism, publishing both for their proprietary digital platforms such as
desktop, mobile, and tablets, as well as non-proprietary platforms such as news aggre-
gators and social media. But aside from using social media for news
2750 new media & society 20(8)

distribution, journalists also use these platforms to connect with sources and find
newsworthy information (Broersma and Graham, 2012). Thus, journalists also engage
in various modes of authentication on social media. A common strategy is depending
only on the verified social media accounts of trusted sources (Brandtzaeg et al., 2016).
But journalists also seek eyewitness accounts on social media, confirm information
from social media via face-to-face or phone interviews, or use available online tools to
authenticate images (Brandtzaeg et al., 2016). Other groups have developed online
tools to automate verification. For example, Thomson Reuters operates an internal
online system, the Reuters Tracer, which can detect and verify breaking news from
Twitter (Liu et al., 2016). Journalists and researchers have also developed SocialSensor,
a mobile and web application for detection and verification of news from social media
(Schifferes et al., 2014; Thurman et al., 2016). But aside from journalists, a vast num-
ber of actors now produce and publish information via social media networks. Some of
these actors also engage in acts of authentication prior to publishing, like journalists
do, while others do not. In this current study, we will focus on how individual users
authenticate the news they find on social media.
Social media have become deeply embedded in social life, from facilitating interper-
sonal relationships (Ledbetter et al., 2011), affecting personal well-being (Kim and Lee,
2011), facilitating social coordination (Ling and Lai, 2016), to shaping news consump-
tion (Lee and Ma, 2012). The most popular social media site, Facebook, claims to have
more than 1.23 billion daily active users as of December 2016 (Facebook, 2017). A large
percentage of these users also get their news from social media. A Reuters Institute for
the Study of Journalism survey across 26 countries found that 44% of those surveyed use
Facebook to read, watch, share, or discuss news (Newman, 2016). People come across
news stories more or less incidentally on social media because they happen to be using
these platforms, often for non-news purposes (Antunovic et al., 2018). They also increas-
ingly depend on what their network of social media friends post and share in choosing
which news stories to read and even in which ones to believe (Turcotte et al., 2015).
Social media have allowed the news audience to evolve.
No longer do news audiences passively wait for news items to be published and
distributed by traditional news organizations; a few of them now actively engage in
news production and distribution. The “people formerly known as the audience”
(Rosen, 2006) now function as individuals who can publish on their social media pages
their own accounts of newsworthy events they witness first-hand, comment on news
items they agree or disagree with, and share articles to their network of friends
(Hermida, 2011). Social media have also increased people’s ability to tune and custom-
ize information they receive to their personal interests (Bennett, 2012). These have
important implications. Sunstein (2009) warned that constant exposure to one set of
views likely leads to errors and confusion. It can also undermine cooperation when
addressing shared problems. By accessing only news conforming to their own perspec-
tives, or the perspectives of their social sphere, audiences risk losing the ability to
engage in a meaningful broader debate (Hargittai et al., 2008). Furthermore, the shift
toward news disseminated among social networks challenges traditional definitions of
information gatekeepers and authoritative voices, and redefines information producers
and consumers (Delli Carpini, 2000). Research on social media news behavior
Tandoc et al. 2751

indicates that the news that gets onto audiences’ agenda most frequently are tabloid
news (Bro and Wallberg, 2013) and weird news (Newman and Levy, 2014). The speed
of news dissemination on mobile and social networks can also reduce deliberation
time, which might also minimize the opportunity for critical evaluation of their
authenticity.
Finally, the concept of source has become more complex on social media. For exam-
ple, while a news organization can publish a news story, other social media users can
share the same story to their respective network of friends. An individual, then, can per-
ceive the friend who shared it as the immediate source, while the news organization that
originally published the story becomes a distant source (Kang et al., 2011). This further
complicates how users evaluate the authenticity of the news stories they come across on
social media. Users’ social context might also play an important role in their openness to
accept the authenticity of an item. For people who live in a particular social context, the
common attitude of their local social sphere can affect their willingness to disbelieve the
material from credible sources in favor of items from biased sources that jive with the
bent of their social network (Liu, 2013).

Theoretical synthesis
Social media have disrupted news production, distribution, and consumption (Hermida,
2011). By enabling speedy distribution of information to networks outside the control of
traditional gatekeepers, social media platforms can also become channels for misinfor-
mation. While in the past, audiences have relied on the news media for news authentica-
tion, the onus for authentication is increasingly on individual users in this period marked
by information overload. Establishing message credibility in the context of social media
has become more problematic than in traditional media. In this article, we examine how
social media users in Singapore authenticate news items they come across on social
media. Based on these authentication strategies, we propose a conceptual framework that
details audiences’ acts of authentication.

Conceptual development
This study is based on open-ended survey responses of a representative sample of 2501
respondents in Singapore. The sample was obtained from a commercially provided
online panel maintained by a large professional polling company in Singapore. The
online survey, which asked about questions on the use of portable and personal informa-
tion devices as part of a larger research project, included a question on news authentica-
tion. Specifically, the respondents were asked: “How do you verify whether news you
see on social media, such as Facebook, is correct?” Offering this as an open-ended ques-
tion, the questionnaire provided respondents with some space to type in their answers.
This approach goes in harmony with the aim of this article, namely, to develop a concep-
tual framework for audience’s acts of authentication. Thus, the analysis focused on iden-
tifying and mapping the heterogeneity in responses. The goal was to identify the nuances
in audience’s acts of authentication, rather than to quantify how many engaged in distinct
forms of such acts.
2752 new media & society 20(8)

Sample
Small but economically strong, Singapore is home to 5.61 million residents (Yong,
2016). The population is multiracial, with the majority ethnic Chinese (74.2%) living
alongside Malays (13.3%), Indians (9.2%), and others (3.3%) (Singapore Tourism
Board, 2013). While it is often criticized in the West for its closely regulated tradi-
tional media system, Singapore is among the most wired nations in the world, and this
has opened up online spaces to alternative sites that also criticize the government
(Chua, 2013). While the majority still consider traditional media credible, an increas-
ing number have been turning to social media for their news consumption (Tandoc
and Duffy, 2016). An estimated 3.5 million residents use Facebook every month
(Facebook Business, 2015). This makes Singapore an ideal context to study audi-
ences’ acts of news authentication.
This study’s sample is evenly split in terms of gender. The majority were Chinese
(71.3%), while 14.4% were Malays, 9.1% were Indians, and 5.2% selected the “oth-
ers” category. The average age was 37.82 years (standard deviation [SD] = 12.68).
The respondents were first asked how often they came across what they thought was
“false news” on social media, using a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (very frequently): 2.2%
answered never, 17.3% answered rarely, 58.8% answered sometimes, 18% answered
frequently, and 3.7% answered very frequently. After this, they were asked how they
verified the items. It is this portion of the questionnaire that we examine in detail
below.

Analysis
The analysis was done in three stages. First, two researchers independently read each
of the 2501 responses to determine the range of authentication strategies. Next, these
two researchers took another round of reading, with the goal of independently devel-
oping specific categories. The two researchers then compared their categories,
engaged in a discussion regarding the content and definition of the categories, and
then integrated their categorizations by retaining those that matched (e.g. creating
the category of intrapersonal verification based on intuition, instinct, and experi-
ence) and re-considering those that did not (e.g. differentiating between external
sources as mainstream or alternative vs merging them into the category of external
online sources).
The next stage included five researchers, including one of the two researchers from
the previous stage. Four researchers did a cursory reading of the individual responses,
while the original researcher presented the categories mapped out from the previous
stage. In plenum, the five researchers discussed the existing categories, compared them
with the individual responses, and further refined the categories, merging related ones
into bigger categories.
Finally, the third stage involved problematizing the relationship between the
descriptive categories and proposing a model of authentication. By going back and
forth from data to theory, a two-step model of audience’s acts of authentications on
social media emerged.
Tandoc et al. 2753

Figure 1.  Audiences’ acts of authentication conceptual model.

This conceptual model argues that, at the most basic level, people rely on their own sense of judgment
(internal). If this approach is unsuccessful in determining the validity of an item, individuals then turn to
external forms of authentication.

Audiences’ acts of authentication

The conceptual framework, which we refer to as audience’s acts of authentication (3 As),
argues that individuals tend to engage in a two-step authentication process: first internal and
then external (see Figure 1). Internal acts of authentication refers to an individual’s initial
encounter with news on social media. In this initial encounter, individuals rely on three main
authentication framings: (1) the self, (2) the source, and (3) the message. When the indi-
vidual is satisfied with the authenticity of the information in this initial stage, the process
ends there, and the information is accepted as authentic. However, if after this reading the
individual remains unconvinced of the information’s authenticity, then he or she proceeds to
the next step, which includes external acts of authentication. It is in this phase of news con-
sumption when external authentication strategies are employed. These can be either inten-
tional or incidental, by relying on interpersonal and institutional resources. That is,
individuals can deliberately seek out ways to verify news items using either their personal
contacts or seeking authentication in formalized sources (see Table 1).

Step 1: internal acts of authentication

This refers to the initial encounter between the individual and a news item on social
media. This stage is quite similar to the assessment of credibility (Appelman and Sundar,
2015). However, in the model we are proposing, the individual relies not only on source
and message cues but also on their own tacit sense of authenticity. Individuals assess the
item based on their own experience, knowledge, and intuition.
2754 new media & society 20(8)

Table 1.  Audiences’ acts of (external) authentication.

Incidental Intentional
Institutional Stumbling upon news posted by Searching on Google
other media Verifying with mainstream sites
Interpersonal Seeing more friends on social Asking friends
media sharing it Asking family members
Asking experts

When the initial encounter still leaves doubts on the authenticity of the news message, respondents
proceed to a second step of authentication, which entails cross-checking with either interpersonal or insti-
tutional sources. This process can either be incidental or intentional.

The self.  The data show that respondents referred to themselves—their own wisdom,
instinct, and insight—as a means to authenticate the news that they encounter on social
media. For example, a 23-year-old respondent noted that he verifies “based on my own
gut feelings.” The respondent added, “Usually, we can all tell if the news is over-exag-
gerated or not. We are old enough to judge and think for ourselves.” Similarly, a 43-year-
old respondent said she verifies “by my knowledge and experience.” Thus, the
respondents described an authentication strategy which drew on their own discernment
and perceptiveness.

The source.  Some respondents also referred to the source of the news as means to authen-
ticate the item. If the source is credible, for example, from a well-known institution, then
the information must be credible. This is consistent with persuasion theories that high-
lighted the role of source credibility in message evaluation (e.g. Chen et al., 1999; Petty
and Cacioppo, 1986). For example, a 21-year-old respondent said he would first “check
if the source is reliable, e.g. an article from an established media company is generally
more factually correct than one from a relatively unknown news site.” A 32-year-old
respondent specifically referred to specific news organizations as sources, saying, “I will
see where the news is from, e.g. Channel News Asia, Straits Times, etc.” These two are
both mainstream news organizations in Singapore. Channel News Asia is a 24-hour news
channel based in Singapore, while The Straits Times is Singapore’s newspaper of record.
Going beyond individual perceptiveness, these comments refer to the legitimacy of well-
developed institutions. In the eyes of these individuals, the legitimacy of these brands is
a cue to them that they can rely on the content of a particular news item.

The message.  This refers to establishing authenticity based on the intrinsic tone and char-
acteristics of the news item itself. For example, a 21-year-old respondent said he would
“check the tone of the news article to see if it’s polemical or deliberately misleading/false
to arouse emotions.” A 19-year-old respondent mentioned referring to “the quality of the
article.” A 46-year old respondent said, “If the news reads nonsensical, illogical or far-
fetch, it is likely false news.”
Going somewhat beyond the strict content of the article, respondents also noted other
dimensions associated with a news item. For example, on social media, each post is also
accompanied by popularity cues, such as number of likes, comments, or shares. Some
Tandoc et al. 2755

respondents also cited these quantitative heuristics as an element in their authentication

calculus. For example, responding to the question of how they verify that the news they
get on social media is correct, a 20-year-old respondent said, “number of shares,” while
a 51-year-old respondent said, “if there are more likes.” In these cases, there is a type of
crowdsourcing associated with the authentication of news items. Clearly this is a prob-
lematic metric, since many “shares” or “likes” is not a concrete reflection of authenticity,
only popularity. In this stage, users only rely on aggregated metrics as heuristics for their
evaluation, without examining specific comments or scrutinizing the identity of the indi-
viduals who contributed to the aggregated metrics.

Step 2: external acts of authentication

When the initial encounter still leaves doubts on the authenticity of the news message,
respondents spoke of a second step of authentication, which entails cross-checking with
sources external to the self, the source, and the message. The process with which external
authentication comes about can either be incidental, when individuals passively rely on
external sources for authentication, or intentional, when they actively seek out such
external sources. The material we examined also suggests that external validation strate-
gies can be grouped into two: interpersonal, for example, with reference to one’s own
network of social media friends, and institutional, for example, with reference to sources
characterized by formal hierarchies and organization, such as news outlets (see Table 1).

Incidental and interpersonal.  Some respondents noted that they passively wait for con-
firmation from family and friends. For example, a 40-year-old respondent said she
would verify “through words of mouth from friends or relatives.” A 79-year-old
respondent also said she is usually “warned by relatives or friends.” A 51-year-old
respondent also said she would be able to authenticate news on social media when
“friends post comments on it.” A 44-year-old respondent said she often ignores news
on social media. In response to the question of how she verifies news she sees on
social media, the respondent said, “I dunno how to verify till informed by my friends.”
This approach to authentication is somewhat similar to the “crowdsourced” strategy
noted above. However, going beyond simply counting number of likes or shares, this
strategy engages the explicit comments of people within one’s immediate social
sphere. That is, users go beyond aggregated metrics in their evaluation by relying on
their own interpersonal networks online.

Incidental and institutional.  Some respondents also passively wait for institutional sources
to authenticate a news report, rather than actively checking with another news outlet. For
example, a 54-year-old respondent said, “If there is doubt of the truth of an article, I
would just wait to see if there is a correction or a follow-up article of clarification. Often
does.” Some respondents would just wait for what other sources report. If more than one
source posts about the news, then they take that as a form of authentication. For example,
a 31-year-old respondent said, “If I see multiple sources, trustworthy sources at that,
reporting the same news, then I take it to be valid.” This is a relatively passive approach
to authentication. The comments of the respondents do not suggest that they apportion
2756 new media & society 20(8)

much effort to the verification process. Rather, if in the flux of their daily life they come
across information that supports or discredits the item, they take note.

Intentional and interpersonal.  Moving from incidental to more active authentication strat-
egies, respondents noted intentionally seeking out verification from others in their social
sphere. For example, some respondents reported seeking assessment from their family
and friends. A 37-year-old respondent said, “I ask someone (husband, relatives or friends)
if it’s true.” A 19-year-old respondent also said,

I will verify and ask my parents or any of my family members and see what they say. Sometimes
even when I heard my friends talking about it, I will go up and check with them to see if the
news I heard is correct (or) not.

This form of checking with family or friends also occurs within the space of social
media. For example, a 68-year-old respondent said, “I WhatsApp a reliable chat group to
ask members to verify.”
The comments of these people outline a very active approach to confirming news.
Rather than simply looking at “like” counts or awaiting the theme to arise on other con-
texts, these people actively sought the counsel of others. It is likely that in these interac-
tions, the social dynamics of confirming news also become conflated with the social
maintenance of the social group. Thus, while, on the one hand, the person seeking con-
firmation can accomplish that task, on the other hand, they are adding to the social legacy
of the group as a source of common perspective. If the group has an ethic of relying on,
for example, empirically based news, then this type of interaction functions to support
that ethic. However, if the group has the broader principle of another approach to under-
standing the news, then that ideological bent can also be developed and maintained.

Intentional and institutional.  Finally, another response was intentionally seeking confirma-
tion from institutional sources. Indeed, some respondents answered the question by simply
typing “Google” in their responses. Others went so far as to explain that they use Google
to check if the story has been reported by other news sites. A 40-year-old respondent said,
“I Google for the title to see if there are any such reports on the mainstream news website.”
Similarly, a 28-year-old respondent said, “I generally cross verify with news website[s]. I
do [a] Google search if legitimate news website[s] have published information or not.” A
few mentioned going directly to a trusted news site to check. For example, a 27-year-old
respondent said, “I’ll verify by checking out trustworthy news sites such as Straits Times
website to make sure if the news is real or fake.” Others mentioned specific fact-checking
sites. For example, a 66-year-old respondent said, “I check using www.snopes.com when
in doubt.” Unlike the previous group that used their social sphere as a point of reference,
this group sought out other more (or less) formal sources in order to authenticate items.

Conclusion
It is clear that fake news is, and has since long been, an increasingly common part of the
news ecosystem (Tandoc et al., 2017). Unintentional fake news, satirical pieces, and
Tandoc et al. 2757

news that is purposely fake have become part of our daily news diet (e.g. Albright, 2016;
Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017). Deliberately false news items have done everything, from
amusing us to confusing us. In a more sinister vein, they have also served to facilitate
improperly founded political mobilization.
The speedy spread of information—both verified and unverified, from both profes-
sional and non-professional content providers—through social media platforms has
facilitated the spread of fake news. For the normal news consumer, it has become increas-
ingly difficult to distinguish between that which is verifiable, empirically based, news,
and that which is falsified content provided with the intention of misleading the reader.
Our nearly continual access to news via personal and portable devices also means that we
are continually one click away from information that may or may not have been ade-
quately vetted. All of this can become more complex when considering the use of news
(and fake news) items by various groups in order to shape and mold political movements.
Because of these issues, it is increasingly important to understand how news consumers
go about verifying items that they suspect to be false.
In this context, we examined the strategies that people use to authenticate news items
they encounter through social media. We have reported on the authentication strategies
that 2501 Singaporeans engage in when they encounter news items. Based on this, we
developed a conceptual model to describe how people authenticate information they
consume via social media. We argue that, at the most basic level, people rely on their
own sense of judgment. They use their tacit stock of knowledge to examine whether a
particular item is believable. Beyond their own stock of knowledge, individual users also
take into account the characteristics of the message itself and of the source. This is simi-
lar to how journalists themselves commonly authenticate information they get from
social media (Brandtzaeg et al., 2016). If this approach is not successful in determining
the validity of an item, individuals then turn to external forms of authentication. These
include passively seeking information from both their social sphere and from other more
formal sources, as well as actively asking others or actively seeking out information to
authenticate the news item.
This conceptual framework is more descriptive rather than normative, for while it
seeks to describe the steps and strategies social media users engage in to authenticate
news they come across, it also introduces a lot of questions. For example, individuals pay
attention to the source at their initial encounter with a news item on social media, but as
what previous studies have argued, the notion of information source on social media is
not straightforward. Source credibility is a matter of perception, and it is possible that an
individual might perceive, based on several factors, a problematic source to be credible.
Similarly, when individuals engage in the next step and use external authentication by
cross-checking with a problematic source, then their effort at authentication might still
result in misinformation. This process is what some actors with vested interest take
advantage of—knowing that individuals will seek external sources, they have built an
“ecosystem of real-time propaganda” through a vast network of questionable sites that
automatically push the same erroneous information (Albright, 2016). So individuals
might try to authenticate by doing a search on Google, but they might still end up with
the same fake news.
2758 new media & society 20(8)

Our conceptual framework is a two-step approach to authentication involving initially

internal and subsequently external activity. Each relates to both the news item and the
individual. So the individual will first look for markers of credibility within the story
(message, source, style) and within themselves (internalized prior knowledge both of the
subject and of the source, instinctive reaction to the news item based on this prior knowl-
edge). Both the story and the self can thus be an object of trust, challenging the ortho-
doxy that trust is in a third party. It is the interplay between these two forms of internal
trust—in oneself and in the news item—that gives power to this conceptual framework
to interrogate the role of trust in how the individual authenticates news items.
In keeping with the principle of cognitive parsimony, only when this internal trust is
insufficient to stamp the story as authentic does the individual move beyond the news
item and beyond their own experiences to look for external markers of credibility. This
suggests a strong social element to what is trusted, and the way in which it is authenti-
cated (i.e. receives the stamp of trustworthiness) by association with the individual’s
social circle. However, while the strategies identified in our proposed framework are
grounded in our data, the process of starting with internal acts before proceeding with
external acts of authentication is a conceptual model based on the nature of the interac-
tion between users and messages on social media. It is plausible, however, that in some
particular instances, some users might proceed directly to external acts of authentication.
Therefore, future studies should clarify when internal and external means are used to
validate a social media post.
A further consideration for this article is the nature of authentication. Behind the con-
cept is the idea of authenticity, which implies truth to an original, and control over repro-
duction. However, there is a subsidiary idea behind authenticity, and hence the act of
authentication, which is that the original only finds meaning insofar as it is copied or
reproduced (Reisinger and Steiner, 2006). What gives value to the authentic Mona Lisa,
and why people queue for a glimpse, is its reproducibility. The value of the authentic
original lies in how often it is copied. This concept of value becomes of interest in the
media when a news item—whether it is a genuine or fake representation of reality—is
reproduced via social media. Popularity, likes, and virality become markers of value.
While not equating “The Pope supports Trump” with the Mona Lisa, the act of repro-
ducing the news item denotes value found in the original, whether it is trusted as truth or
not. This opens up an avenue of academic enquiry into the value (and hence reproducibil-
ity) of shared news items, even when the sharer knows or suspects they are fake. These
can range from individuals who share a fake news item knowing it is fake, but believing
it is entertaining enough to share; to those who suspect it is fake but share it anyway
because it conforms to the agenda they wish to promote; to those who do not care if it is
fake or not, as long as it suits their ideology. These stories are authentic—that is, they
have an original which is valued enough to be copied—and paradoxically the lack of will
to authenticate them increases their authenticity by not challenging their reproducibility,
but simply reproducing them.
In addition, there is evidently value in news, and the reasons individuals have for
reading news items impact on the lengths they will go to in order to authenticate a story.
Tsfati and Cappella (2005) summarized motives for news consumption to include social-
integrative (to be part of the conversation), surveillance (to gather information to help
Tandoc et al. 2759

everyday life), mood management (stimulation during moments of boredom), and cogni-
tive needs (to understand the world, political life, and arguments for and against topics
of discussion). People may consume news they do not trust as it still fulfills these func-
tions (Tsfati and Cappella, 2005). News can have value even when it is fake; a direction
for future research, therefore, must be under what circumstances do individuals authen-
ticate a story, and when are they contented to read, share, or use the information without
validating it?
Since our proposed conceptual framework is grounded in empirical data, it should also
be understood in the context of several limitations. First, since the goal of this article is to
develop and propose a conceptual framework that accounts for the full variety of strate-
gies for authentication of news items on social media, we did not quantitatively analyze
the open-ended responses but instead focused on identifying nuances and differences in
these responses. Future studies should build on the framework we have proposed and
examine which of the authentication strategies are more frequently invoked and with what
implications. Second, as we have noted, our framework is more descriptive than norma-
tive, and while it opens up for empirical examination how individuals engage in authenti-
cation of news, future studies should also examine how individuals should authenticate
news they see on social media. This can contribute to current re-examinations of media
literacy, as the onus for authentication now falls on individual users. Finally, our two-step
model assumes that individual users are motivated to authenticate—that is, before they
attend to any news article they come across on social media, they engage in some forms
of authentication, no matter how brief and basic. While this assumption is informed by
earlier theorizing in cognitive processing of news (e.g. Eveland, 2001) and the epistemol-
ogy of news (e.g. Ettema and Glasser, 1987), future studies can also examine the anteced-
ents of news authentication. Still, these limitations notwithstanding, we hope our proposed
conceptual framework can contribute in understanding—and raising more questions
about—the real need for news authentication in this age of fake news.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore.

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Author biographies
Edson C Tandoc Jr (PhD, University of Missouri) is an assistant professor at the Wee Kim Wee
School of Communication and Information at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
His research focuses on the sociology of message construction. He has conducted studies on the
construction of news and social media messages. Prior to his graduate studies, he worked as a
journalist in the Philippines for six years.
Richard Ling (PhD, University of Colorado) is the Shaw Foundation professor of Media Technology
at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. For the past 2 decades, he has studied the social
consequences of mobile communication. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Computer-
Mediated Communication and is a founding co-editor of Mobile Media and Communication
(Sage) and the Oxford University Press Series Studies in Mobile Communication. He was recently
named a fellow of the International Communication Association.
Oscar Westlund (PhD, University of Gothenburg) is an associate professor at University of
Gothenburg and a professor (II) at Volda University College. He is an award winning researcher
and teacher focusing on digital journalism and media. He currently leads the “The Epistemologies
of Digital News Production” project (2017-2020).
Andrew Duffy (PhD, National University of Singapore) is an assistant professor at the Wee Kim
Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. His research
interests include travel journalism/blogs and critical-cultural studies; mobility and mooring in
communication; the effect of smartphones on tourist behaviour; role conceptions among the next
generation of journalists; and the effects of smartphones on news production and consumption.
Debbie Goh (PhD, Indiana University) was an assistant professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of
Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. Her research interests
include information and communication technologies, focusing on new media and the digital
divide.
Lim Zheng Wei finished his undergraduate degree in sociology at the Nanyang Technological
University in July 2017.

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