(ECNS) -- In the era of We Media, citizens can publish and circulate information and opinions online, develop their own user profiles, and become independent "media entities."
A survey of 2,003 people found that We Media had a significant influence on about 60 percent of respondents when it came to controversial incidents.
While 45.9 percent had more trust in traditional media, 29.5 percent put more faith in We Media, according to the survey.
The survey, jointly conducted by China Youth Daily and wenjuan.com, also showed that 34.7 percent of respondents complained that We Media prioritized hot topics and click bait over improving content quality, and another 45.9 percent blamed a "low threshold" for the proliferation of vulgar content online.
About 25 percent of respondents to the survey did a lot of reading on We Media, 54 percent did some, 16 percent did little, and 3.3 percent never read anything generated by We Media.
Reading articles published on social media forum WeChat was the main channel by which Yu Zedong, a sophomore at a Beijing college, kept himself informed. Yu was reading news, commentaries and "Chicken Soup for the Soul."
While interesting content was most attractive to 45.8 percent of respondents, 43 percent endorsed the varied forms and styles of presentation employed by We Media, and 20.7 percent said they discovered high-quality and thoughtful content through the medium.
Lin Yi (pseudonym), an editor at a relationship site on WeChat, said he prioritized "hot topics" because they generated a lot of attention and many hits.
The quality of content mainly depended on the writer's capability, Lin said.
"If the writer has limited ability, he can hardly produce quality content, whether tracking hot topics or not," Lin added.
Meanwhile, plagiarism remains rampant on We Media. While copied words are easier for mechanical censors to spot after the number of words exceed a certain limit, copied ideas are "difficult to catch," Lin said.
