A Study of Perceived Credibility of News Broadcasters and Impact of Social Media Platforms on Opinion Formation

The quest for knowledge is one of the factors that differentiate humans from other species. This quest that expresses itself as curiosity about the surroundings and need for familiarity has expressed itself as a hunger for news and information. Newspapers were the traditional answers to this need and held sway for several decades till Television emerged as the medium of choice for households. This continued till internet and social media platforms took the world by storm and these today get greater time than traditional media of mass communication used for disbursing news and its analysis. This study focused on assessing the perception of people in terms of credibility of traditional media like newspapers and TV along with media like internet and social media platforms in vogue in the recent times. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire circulated as a google form and purposive sampling employed for seeking responses. It is seen that while social media platforms are highly engaging but when it comes to trust, newspapers still command great respect though newspaper industry is not as profitable as it used to be. The need for a credible and engaging medium of disbursing news and its analyses in a profitable manner then emerges as the primary challenge of our generation for modern entrepreneurs and present-day society.