scholarly journals Why do so few people share fake news? It hurts their reputation

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482096989
Author(s):  
Sacha Altay ◽  
Anne-Sophie Hacquin ◽  
Hugo Mercier

In spite of the attractiveness of fake news stories, most people are reluctant to share them. Why? Four pre-registered experiments ( N = 3,656) suggest that sharing fake news hurt one’s reputation in a way that is difficult to fix, even for politically congruent fake news. The decrease in trust a source (media outlet or individual) suffers when sharing one fake news story against a background of real news is larger than the increase in trust a source enjoys when sharing one real news story against a background of fake news. A comparison with real-world media outlets showed that only sources sharing no fake news at all had similar trust ratings to mainstream media. Finally, we found that the majority of people declare they would have to be paid to share fake news, even when the news is politically congruent, and more so when their reputation is at stake.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sacha Altay ◽  
Anne-Sophie Hacquin ◽  
Hugo Mercier

In spite of the attractiveness of fake news stories, most people are reluctant to share them. Why? Four pre-registered experiments (N = 3656) suggest that sharing fake news hurt one’s reputation in a way that is difficult to fix, even for politically congruent fake news. The decrease in trust a source (media outlet or individual) suffers when sharing one fake news story against a background of real news is larger than the increase in trust a source enjoys when sharing one real news story against a background of fake news. A comparison with real-world media outlets showed that only sources sharing no fake news at all had similar trust ratings to mainstream media. Finally, we found that the majority of people declare they would have to be paid to share fake news, even when the news is politically congruent, and more so when their reputation is at stake.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciara Greene ◽  
Gillian Murphy

Previous research has argued that fake news may have grave consequences for health behaviour, but surprisingly, no empirical data have been provided to support this assumption. This issue takes on new urgency in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. In this large preregistered study (N = 3746) we investigated the effect of exposure to fabricated news stories about COVID-19 on related behavioural intentions. We observed small but measurable effects on some related behavioural intentions but not others – for example, participants who read a story about problems with a forthcoming contact-tracing app reported reduced willingness to download the app. We found no effects of providing a general warning about the dangers of online misinformation on response to the fake stories, regardless of the framing of the warning in positive or negative terms. We conclude with a call for more empirical research on the real-world consequences of fake news.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-473
Author(s):  
Marcelo Träsel ◽  
Sílvia Lisboa ◽  
Giulia Reis Vinciprova

The terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ have been used to describe the augmented dissemination potential of misinformation in digital networks in the second decade of the years 2000. In Brazil, different actors have been exploiting digital social networks for political purposes, disseminating content that imitates legitimate journalistic material, often obtaining better audience metrics than the news stories published by mainstream media. This article is divided into two parts. First, defines the term pseudojournalism to classify fraudulent texts that use journalistic narrative resources to deceive the audience. Second, it presents the results of an analysis of 23 political content producers with the greatest audience on Facebook in Brazil, based on the credibility indicators developed by Projeto Credibilidade (Trust Project). The results suggest that, in the current scenario, it is not possible to distinguish the quality journalism from pseudojournalism based on the characteristics of the websites and articles published by political content producers.Os termos “notícias falsas” e “pós-verdade” vêm sendo usados para descrever a potencialização da desinformação nas redes digitais na segunda década dos anos 2000. No Brasil, diversos atores vêm instrumentalizando as redes sociais para disputas políticas, espalhando conteúdo falso que imita materiais jornalísticos legítimos, muitas vezes obtendo mais audiência do que o noticiário de veículos tradicionais. Este artigo se divide em duas partes. Na primeira, conceitua o termo pseudojornalismo para classificar textos fraudulentos que usam os recursos narrativos jornalísticos para ludibriar a audiência. Na segunda, apresenta os resultados de uma análise de 23 produtores de conteúdo político do país com maior audiência no Facebook, a partir dos indicadores de credibilidade desenvolvidos pelo Projeto Credibilidade (Trust Project). Os resultados sugerem que, no cenário atual, não é possível distinguir o jornalismo de qualidade do pseudojornalismo a partir das características dos websites e matérias publicadas por produtores de conteúdo político.Las expresiones “noticias falsas” y “posverdad” vienen siendo utilizados para describir la potencialización de la desinformación en las redes digitales en la segunda década de los años 2000. En Brasil, distintos actores vienen instrumentalizando las redes sociales para disputas políticas, diseminando contenido falso que simula materiales periodísticos legítimos, obteniendo, a menudo, mayor audiencia que el noticiero de medios tradicionales. Este artículo está dividido en dos partes. Primero, conceptualiza el término pseudoperiodismo para calificar textos fraudulentos que utilizan los recursos de narración típicos del periodismo para engañar a la audiencia. En segundo lugar, presenta los resultados de un análisis de 23 productores de contenido político del país con mayor audiencia en Facebook, a partir de los indicadores de credibilidad desarrollados por el Proyecto Credibilidad (Trust Project). Los resultados sugieren que, en el escenario actual, no es posible diferenciar el periodismo de calidad del pseudoperiodismo a partir de las características de los sitios web y de materias publicadas por productores de contenido político.


Author(s):  
Joseph E. Burns

Wiki journalism is a format of participatory journalism in which citizens are encouraged to add to, or modify, a wiki-based news story. Although the process is relatively new and the mainstream media still seem wary to accept the concept, the public has begun to recognize the potential of wiki journalism as a form of reporting. Wiki journalism has claimed success in the primary coverage of large news stories (for example, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007) and in being the first source to provide images, sound, and first-hand accounts. The technology is already in place for citizenbased journalism to become a true new branch of media. However, critics of wiki journalism point out that this type of journalism is often based more on opinion than fact. Another concern is that when it comes to journalistic ethics and the law, participatory media do not function under the same set of rules as the traditional media. The author maintains that the future of wiki journalism depends on whether or not this novel news format can stand on its own.


Author(s):  
Mariana De Maio

November 2015 became a key date in the history of Argentina as former president Cristina Fernandez’ party lost the national elections by the narrowest of margins, less than 700,000 votes, to the right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri, ending a twelve-year run of one of the most progressive governments in the history of Argentina. Many analysts argue that large media conglomerates, especially the Clarín Group, played a significant role in the process leading to political change. Macri supporters in the city of Buenos Aires provided some reasons for their decision to vote for Macri and against Daniel Scioli, who ran on Fernandez’ party ticket. Their answers seem to be influenced by a series of fake news (misleading news articles) published by Clarín and La Nación, two leading news organizations in Argentina, during the months before the national elections. These misleading news stories were published in the front pages of those newspapers and at prime time in their affiliate TV and radio stations. Corrections and retractions rarely appeared in the front pages or prime time. Macri voters came to accept the initial news as legitimate and were influenced by them during the 2015 presidential election. Considering the insignificant margin of votes deciding the election, it can be argued that the two news organizations may have been instrumental in shaping the perceptions of just enough voters to swing the results in Macri’s favor. This suggests that dominant mainstream media have had a significant influence on voters’ attitudes and that this may explain in part the election’s outcome.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
pp. 4062 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heejung Jwa ◽  
Dongsuk Oh ◽  
Kinam Park ◽  
Jang Kang ◽  
Hueiseok Lim

News currently spreads rapidly through the internet. Because fake news stories are designed to attract readers, they tend to spread faster. For most readers, detecting fake news can be challenging and such readers usually end up believing that the fake news story is fact. Because fake news can be socially problematic, a model that automatically detects such fake news is required. In this paper, we focus on data-driven automatic fake news detection methods. We first apply the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model (BERT) model to detect fake news by analyzing the relationship between the headline and the body text of news. To further improve performance, additional news data are gathered and used to pre-train this model. We determine that the deep-contextualizing nature of BERT is best suited for this task and improves the 0.14 F-score over older state-of-the-art models.


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (s1) ◽  
pp. 694-717
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Corbu ◽  
Alina Bârgăoanu ◽  
Raluca Buturoiu ◽  
Oana Ștefăniță

AbstractThis study examines the potential of fake news to produce effects on social media engagement as well as the moderating role of education and government approval. We report on a 2x2x2 online experiment conducted in Romania (N=813), in which we manipulated the level of facticity of a news story, its valence, and intention to deceive. Results show that ideologically driven news with a negative valence (rather than fabricated news or other genres, such as satire and parody) have a greater virality potential. However, neither the level of education nor government approval moderate this effect. Additionally, both positive and negative ideologically driven news stories enhance the probability that people will sign a document to support the government (i. e., potential for political engagement on social media). These latter effects are moderated by government approval: Lower levels of government approval lead to less support for the government on social media, as a consequence of fake news exposure.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-225
Author(s):  
Festus Prosper Olise ◽  

This study investigates the level of acceptance of news stories on social media platforms among youth in Nigeria following the assumption that the proliferation of news stories on social media promotes the circulation of both factual and fake news. The sample consisted of 600 youth; however, 583 validly participated in the study. The participants were equitably selected in six States in Nigeria that represented the six geo-political zones of the country. The multi-stage sampling technique was employed to evenly select the youth from the major cities/towns in the States. Data generated were analysed and presented through descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 20 software. Results show that the youth accepted entertainment news stories more than any other type of news stories on social media platforms. The majority of the youth considered Twitter as the most acceptable social media platform for receiving news stories in Nigeria. Findings also revealed that despite their love to read news stories on social media platforms, the youth’s level of acceptance of it was low. Furthermore, the age and gender of the youth were found to directly influence their level of acceptance of news stories on social media platforms. The study concluded that the multi-dimensional inter-play that characterised the low level of acceptance of news stories on social media platforms among the youth in Nigeria does not portend ominous signs. Keywords: Acceptance, mainstream media, news stories, social media platforms, youth.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 687-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi

This study analyzes mainstream media (MSM) coverage of fake news discourse and compares it with social networking sites (SNS) users who reference the term “fakenews” in their tweets. The study employs computational methods by analyzing over 8 million tweets and 1,350 news stories using topic modeling. Building on the theory of (networked) gatekeeping and Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, the results show that SNS users follow networked gatekeeping practices by mostly associating fake news references to the alleged bias of MSM. On the other hand, MSM coverage tends to link fake news to SNS’s negative role in spreading misinformation. I argue here that there is a networked flak activity on Twitter which is defined as a collective negative response to MSM in order to discipline it, change its tone and editorial stance, or undermine the public’s trust in it.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 1449-1459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Murphy ◽  
Elizabeth F. Loftus ◽  
Rebecca Hofstein Grady ◽  
Linda J. Levine ◽  
Ciara M. Greene

The current study examined false memories in the week preceding the 2018 Irish abortion referendum. Participants ( N = 3,140) viewed six news stories concerning campaign events—two fabricated and four authentic. Almost half of the sample reported a false memory for at least one fabricated event, with more than one third of participants reporting a specific memory of the event. “Yes” voters (those in favor of legalizing abortion) were more likely than “no” voters to “remember” a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote “no,” and “no” voters were more likely than “yes” voters to “remember” a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote “yes.” This difference was particularly strong for voters of low cognitive ability. A subsequent warning about possible misinformation slightly reduced rates of false memories but did not eliminate these effects. This study suggests that voters in a real-world political campaign are most susceptible to forming false memories for fake news that aligns with their beliefs, in particular if they have low cognitive ability.


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