A survey instrument was developed to understand people’s perceptions of their
positions within the online community, the relationships with their connections, the
quality of news disseminated in social media, as well as their usage of social media to
share news. The survey was administered to undergraduate and graduate students at
a major local university. University students are suitable for exploring patterns of news
sharing in social media because they represent the overall online community who
access or share news and reflect trends in social media usage (Diddi and LaRose, 2006).