Students’ Perception on the Characteristics of Online News andStudents’ Perception on the Characteristics of Online News andSocial Media as News Medium

Abstract

Social media have become significant in the lives of many young people. Use of social media increases as that of newspapers decreases. Nowadays, cellphones andother electronic devices have taken over all forms of communication. As access andavailability on online news grow, the concern for the quality of information foundonline deceases. This descriptive study determined students’ perception on thecharacteristics of online news and social media as news medium. Further, itexamined the significant difference in the characteristics of online news and socialmedia as news medium considering gender, school affiliation, and religion.Credibility Perceptions of Television and Online News questionnaire was used togather information from a purposively sampled 120 students among three collegesin Region IV. Bipolar adjectives in a semantic scale of 1-5 were used in thisquestionnaire. The respondents used Facebook (91.67%), Twitter (41.67%),YouTube (43.33%), Snapchat (5.83%) and Others (17.5%). The respondentsperceived a low credibility of online news and social media in terms of fairness,unbiased, coverage of the story, accuracy, public, privacy, separating facts andopinion, trustworthiness, concerns, factual, and presentation. Further resultsrevealed that the respondents perceived that online news cares about the audience’sneeds and interests, concerned about the public interest and community’s wellbeing,uses activevoice,with political leanings,andoffers fresh news. The gender difference on the characteristics of news and social media as news medium is

significant in favor of females. Therespondents’perceptionof the characteristics of
newsand social media as news mediums significantly differ by schools and religion.
Itisrecommendedtofindotherfactors that influence the credibility of news
medium. Otherimplicationswere discussed in the study.