Falling for Fake News (original) (raw)
Related papers
Falling for Fake News: Investigating the Consumption of News via Social Media
In the so called 'post-truth' era, characterized by a loss of public trust in various institutions, and the rise of 'fake news' disseminated via the internet and social media, individuals may face uncertainty about the veracity of information available, whether it be satire or malicious hoax. We investigate attitudes to news delivered by social media, and subsequent verification strategies applied, or not applied, by individuals. A survey reveals that two thirds of respondents regularly consumed news via Facebook, and that one third had at some point come across fake news that they initially believed to be true. An analysis task involving news presented via Facebook reveals a diverse range of judgement forming strategies, with participants relying on personal judgements as to plausibility and scepticism around sources and journalistic style. This reflects a shift away from traditional methods of accessing the news, and highlights the difficulties in combating the spr...
2021
Using a survey of U.S. adults, this research examines the content, source, and typology cues that people rely on when assessing misinformation in the news, frequently referred to as fake news, and how those factors impact the confidence they have in their ability to identify fake news. Participants’ confidence in recognizing fake news was significantly affected by their patterns of looking at news cues, such as a story’s URL and author, as well as by their engaging in their own research and seeking out news that confirms what they already believe. These findings signal a need for increased, continuous news literacy education designed to empower the public to push back against the seedy allure of fake news and other forms of misinformation that pose as legitimate, objective news.
Opinions of Internet users on fake news (research report)
Media - Kultura - Komunikacja Społeczna
Fake news is becoming increasingly prevalent in mass media and poses a significant threat to various aspects of society, including individual, political, economic, cultural, and health domains. Current events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, demonstrate the harmful effects of disinformation on the real world. This article presents the findings of an empirical study conducted on a sample of 110 internet users to understand their attitudes towards fake news. The study aimed to explore how internet users perceive fake news, its forms, and the risks associated with believing false information. The research results demonstrate that the respondents had a good understanding of the concept of fake news and its dangers. Most of the respondents reported attempting to verify the information they read by cross-checking it with multiple sources of information.
El profesional de la información
The main social media platforms have been implementing strategies to minimize fake news dissemination. These include identifying, labeling, and penalizing –via news feed ranking algorithms– fake publications. Part of the rationale behind this approach is that the negative effects of fake content arise only when social media users are deceived. Once debunked, fake posts and news stories should therefore become harmless. Unfortunately, the literature shows that the effects of misinformation are more complex and tend to persist and even backfire after correction. Furthermore, we still do not know much about how social media users evaluate content that has been fact-checked and flagged as false. More worryingly, previous findings suggest that some people may intentionally share made up news on social media, although their motivations are not fully explained. To better understand users’ interaction with social media content identified or recognized as false, we analyze qualitative and qu...
Taking corrective action when exposed to fake news: The role of fake news literacy
The journal of media literacy education, 2022
Fake news poses a threat to democracy. The rise of social media and its lax content regulation have facilitated a dynamic environment where mis-and disinformation are spread. However, social media is also the place where false information may be corrected. Initial scholarly efforts begin to highlight what is needed for citizens to take corrective action when exposed to fake news on social media. This study is a further step in that direction by introducing the construct of 'fake news media literacy'. Relying on survey data from the U.S. (N = 1338), we show that news media literacy in terms of media locus of control and need for cognition might not be sufficient to take corrective action; individuals rather need to develop specific fake news literacy. Implications for media literacy initiatives are discussed.
2021
Fake news poses one of the greatest threats to democracy, journalism, and freedom of expression. In recent cases, fake news’ designs are to create confusion and lower trust among the general public—as seen in the 2016 United States presidential campaign and the Brexit referendum. The spread of information without formal verification increased since the introduction of social media and online news channels. After the popularization of fake news, researchers have tried to evaluate and understand the effects of false information from multiple different perspectives. However, it is evident that to tackle the problem of fake news, interdisciplinary collaboration is needed. This article evaluates the main findings of recent literature from an integrated psychological, linguistic, cognitive, and societal perspective, with a particular focus on digital and age-related aspects of fake news. From a psychosociological standpoint, the article provides a synthesized profile of the fake news beli...
ArXiv, 2021
Misinformation posting and spreading in Social Media is ignited by personal decisions on the truthfulness of news that may cause wide and deep cascades at a large scale in a fraction of minutes. When individuals are exposed to information, they usually take a few seconds to decide if the content (or the source) is reliable, and eventually to share it. Although the opportunity to verify the rumour is often just one click away, many users fail to make a correct evaluation. We studied this phenomenon by implementing a web-based questionnaire that was compiled by 7,298 different volunteers. Participants were asked to mark 20 news as true or false. Interestingly, false news is correctly identified more frequently than true news, but showing the full article instead of just the title, surprisingly, does not increase general accuracy. Also, displaying the original source of the news may contribute to mislead the user in some cases, while the wisdom of the crowd can positively assist indivi...
News Consuming Habits of Young Social Media Users in the Era of Fake News
2020
Over the last few decades social media and networking have become popular with the young, middle aged and elderly alike. However, it is the young who tend to be connected to social media most. They use social media for several purposes of which social networking, news dissemination as well as news consumption seem to be the leading cause. As a consequence, users are allowed to share emotions, opinions, bias and manipulative information sometimes without any control, which may lead to the phenomenon of fake news. The objective of this study is to examine news consumption, attitudes and strategies to fake news among young social media users. It is hypothesised that young social media users do not trust fully in social media, especially women. However, they have strategies to cope with fake news. It is also assumed that young social media users support the introduction of social media as a subject into the school curricula. All of our hypotheses were supported by the findings of qualit...
To Believe News, or not to Believe: Fake News Awareness
To Believe News, or not to Believe- Fake News Awareness- Mohammad Sultan, 2020
Once upon a time, a narcissistic prince asked his retinue to get him an elegant outfit for his next public appearance. His retinue did not like him and decided to embarrass him in front of his subjects, so when he was supposed to try the "outfit," he discovered that the tailors had nothing for him. When he said he couldn't see anything, the tailors insisted that the outfit was not only ready but also magnificent. Supported by the prince's retinue, the tailors started describing the elegant outfit of the prince in detail. Everyone praised the outfit, so the prince thought that he was wrong. On the day of his public appearance, the prince was surrounded by his fawning escort, and he confidently ascended his throne stark naked. Fake news may have devastating effects on individuals as well as nations. Circulated either among a little number of people or across nations, fake news may cause terrible consequences on the personal or social level. Since the beginning of life on earth, many people resorted to spreading rumors and incorrect information to attain personal benefits or inflict harm on others. The rapid technological development in the modern age and the easy connection through radio, Television, and the Internet make the transmission of information, whether accurate or false, faster and easier. Due to the destructive effects of fake news on the personal or public level, spreading awareness about credibility and authenticity is a pressing need to confront its constant danger. After the revolution of communication, which facilitated the use of the press and the Internet, people used fake news to spoil the reputation of their opponents. This is widely used in political
Examining Journalist’s Perception of Fake News and Their Attitude toward Debunking disinformation
Studies in Media and Communication
Fake news and other forms of disinformation pose a serious threat to the news ecosystem and the informing of audiences, who are increasingly dependent on online sources of information. After the attention paid to the spreading of fake news, researchers have focused on the study of the negative effects that different typologies of disinformation are prone to having on audiences. Similarly, great attention has also been paid to the motives that users have for the spreading of fake news.These studies, which combine various disciplines, attempt to analyze the psychological factors and motives that lead users to engage with online fake news. On the other hand, several studies have analyzed the role of platforms and their algorithmic logic, as well as the main approaches for addressing this significant problem. Although much effort has been devoted to the phenomenon of disinformation in social media, the role of professional journalists in exposing false information has not been given the...