scholarly journals Real Talk About Fake News: Identity Language and Disconnected Networks of the US Public’s “Fake News” Discourse on Twitter

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512091684
Author(s):  
Jianing Li ◽  
Min-Hsin Su
Keyword(s):  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Blame Attributions ◽  
News Discourse ◽  
The Us ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Twitter Users

This article studies “fake news” beyond the consumption and dissemination of misinformation and disinformation. We uncover how the term “fake news” serves as a discursive device for ordinary citizens to consolidate group identity in everyday political utterances on Twitter. Using computational linguistic and network analyses, we demonstrate that over the period of 2016–2018, there is an uptrend in the use of identity language in US Twitter users’ discussions about “fake news,” manifested by the increased frequency of group pronouns in combination with issues and sentiments that boost one’s ingroup and derogate the outgroup. Furthermore, as opposed to the conventional wisdom that “fake news” is a right-wing term, we uncover two disconnected retweet networks surrounding liberal and conservative opinion leaders. Like-minded individuals selectively amplify ingroup messages to claim the power to define falsehood and make group-serving blame attributions. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings and offer new directions for future research on “fake news,” misinformation, and disinformation.

What the fake? Assessing the extent of networked political spamming and bots in the propagation of #fakenews on Twitter

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Jacob Groshek ◽  
Li Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
News Discourse ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
One Year

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine one of the largest data sets on the hashtag use of #fakenews that comprises over 14m tweets sent by more than 2.4m users.Design/methodology/approachTweets referencing the hashtag (#fakenews) were collected for a period of over one year from January 3 to May 7 of 2018. Bot detection tools were employed, and the most retweeted posts, most mentions and most hashtags as well as the top 50 most active users in terms of the frequency of their tweets were analyzed.FindingsThe majority of the top 50 Twitter users are more likely to be automated bots, while certain users’ posts like that are sent by President Donald Trump dominate the most retweeted posts that always associate mainstream media with fake news. The most used words and hashtags show that major news organizations are frequently referenced with a focus on CNN that is often mentioned in negative ways.Research limitations/implicationsThe research study is limited to the examination of Twitter data, while ethnographic methods like interviews or surveys are further needed to complement these findings. Though the data reported here do not prove direct effects, the implications of the research provide a vital framework for assessing and diagnosing the networked spammers and main actors that have been pivotal in shaping discourses around fake news on social media. These discourses, which are sometimes assisted by bots, can create a potential influence on audiences and their trust in mainstream media and understanding of what fake news is.Originality/valueThis paper offers results on one of the first empirical research studies on the propagation of fake news discourse on social media by shedding light on the most active Twitter users who discuss and mention the term “#fakenews” in connection to other news organizations, parties and related figures.

scholarly journals A simulated cyberattack on Twitter: Assessing partisan vulnerability to spear phishing and disinformation ahead of the 2018 U.S. midterm elections

First Monday ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bossetta
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Breaking News ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Twitter Users

State-sponsored “bad actors” increasingly weaponize social media platforms to launch cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns during elections. Social media companies, due to their rapid growth and scale, struggle to prevent the weaponization of their platforms. This study conducts an automated spear phishing and disinformation campaign on Twitter ahead of the 2018 United States midterm elections. A fake news bot account — the @DCNewsReport — was created and programmed to automatically send customized tweets with a “breaking news” link to 138 Twitter users, before being restricted by Twitter.Overall, one in five users clicked the link, which could have potentially led to the downloading of ransomware or the theft of private information. However, the link in this experiment was non-malicious and redirected users to a Google Forms survey. In predicting users’ likelihood to click the link on Twitter, no statistically significant differences were observed between right-wing and left-wing partisans, or between Web users and mobile users. The findings signal that politically expressive Americans on Twitter, regardless of their party preferences or the devices they use to access the platform, are at risk of being spear phished on social media.

scholarly journals A close-up on ‘top tweeters’ in Finland: Relevance of the national context in political Twitter campaigning

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erkka Railo ◽  
Eliisa Vainikka
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Party Position ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
National Coalition ◽  
The Right

This article examines the use of Twitter by Finnish candidates in the European parliamentary election of 2014. It concentrates on two groups of candidates: the 20 most active Twitter users measured by the number of tweets sent and those 20 candidates who aroused the most interest, measured by the number of Twitter replies received. The study takes into consideration contextual variables, such as gender, age, party, position and place of residence of the candidates. The main research question asks for what kind of candidates does Twitter offer a platform to challenge existing political power structures (equalizing hypothesis), and for what kind of candidates does Twitter not offer this platform (normalization hypothesis) The main finding was that Twitter was mostly used by established, middle-aged, urban, professional politicians of the right-wing National Coalition Party. This party has mostly young, well-educated and urban supporters in Southern Finland. For these people, Twitter was an effective tool to normalize the current power structures. However, for some other candidates Twitter seemed to have a more equalizing nature: the Green candidates, women and representatives of the parties’ youth organisations. The article demonstrates the need for a more nuanced approach to the normalization/equalization hypothesis in future research.

scholarly journals You are fake news: political bias in perceptions of fake news

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander van der Linden ◽  
Costas Panagopoulos ◽  
Jon Roozenbeek
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Us ◽  
News Effect

Although the rise of fake news is posing an increasing threat to societies worldwide, little is known about what associations the term ‘fake news’ activates in the public mind. Here, we report a psychological bias that we describe as the ‘fake news effect’: the tendency for partisans to use the term ‘fake news’ to discount and discredit ideologically uncongenial media sources. In a national sample of the US population ( N = 1000), we elicited top-of-mind associations with the term ‘fake news’. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find evidence that both liberals and conservatives freely associate traditionally left-wing (e.g. CNN) and right-wing (e.g. Fox News) media sources with the term fake news. Moreover, conservatives are especially likely to associate the mainstream media with the term fake news and these perceptions are generally linked to lower trust in media, voting for Trump, and higher belief in conspiracy theories.

scholarly journals A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study of Attitudes toward Spanish as a Heritage Language in Florida

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Ethan Kutlu ◽  
Ruth Kircher
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Twitter Users

Spanish speakers constitute the largest heritage language community in the US. The state of Florida is unusual in that, on one hand, it has one of the highest foreign-born resident rates in the country, most of whom originate from Latin America—but on the other hand, Florida has a comparatively low Spanish language vitality. In this exploratory study of attitudes toward Spanish as a heritage language in Florida, we analyzed two corpora (one English: 5,405,947 words, and one Spanish: 525,425 words) consisting of recent Twitter data. We examined frequencies, collocations, concordance lines, and larger text segments. The results indicate predominantly negative attitudes toward Spanish on the status dimension, but predominantly positive attitudes on the solidarity dimension. Despite the latter, transmission and use of Spanish were found to be affected by pressure to assimilate, and fear of negative societal repercussions. We also found Spanish to be used less frequently than English to tweet about attitudes; instead, Spanish was frequently used to attract Twitter users’ attention to specific links in the language. We discuss the implications of our findings (should they generalize) for the future of Spanish in Florida, and we provide directions for future research.

Political psychology in the digital (mis)information age: A model of news belief and sharing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel ◽  
Elizabeth Ann Harris ◽  
Philip Pärnamets ◽  
Steve Rathje ◽  
Kimberly Doell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Integrative Model ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Social

The spread of misinformation, including “fake news,” propaganda, and conspiracy theories, represents a serious threat to society, as it has the potential to alter beliefs, behavior, and policy. Research is beginning to disentangle how and why misinformation is spread and identify processes that contribute to this social problem. We propose an integrative model to understand the social, political, and cognitive psychology risk factors that underlie the spread of misinformation and highlight strategies that might be effective in mitigating this problem. However, the spread of misinformation is a rapidly growing and evolving problem; thus scholars need to identify and test novel solutions, and work with policy makers to evaluate and deploy these solutions. Hence, we provide a roadmap for future research to identify where scholars should invest their energy in order to have the greatest overall impact.

Reaching Spanish-Speakers in Self-Administered Surveys

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J Michael Brick ◽  
Andrew Caporaso ◽  
Douglas Williams ◽  
David Cantor
Keyword(s):  
Single Phase ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Internet ◽  
English Only ◽  
Eligible Population ◽  
The Us ◽  
Survey Estimates

Decisions on public policy can be affected if important segments of the population are systematically excluded from the data used to drive the decisions. In the US, Spanishspeakers make up an important subgroup that surveys conducted in English-only underrepresent. This subgroup differs in a variety of characteristics and they are less likely to respond to surveys in English-only. These factors lead to nonresponse biases that are problematic for survey estimates. For surveys conducted by mail, one solution is to include both English and Spanish materials in the survey package. For addresses in the US where Spanish-speakers are likely to be living, this approach is effective, but it still may omit some non-English-speakers. Traditionally, including both English and Spanish materials for addresses not identified as likely to have Spanish-speakers was considered problematic due to concerns of a backlash effect. The backlash effect is that predominantly English-speakers might respond at a lower rate because of the inclusion of Spanish materials. Prior research found no evidence of a backlash, but used a twophase approach with a short screener questionnaire to identify the eligible population for an education survey. In this paper, we report on experiments in two surveys that extend the previous research to criminal victimization and health communication single-phase surveys. These experiments test the effect of the inclusion of Spanish language materials for addresses not identified as likely to have Spanish-speakers. Our findings confirm most results of the previous research; however we find no substantial increase in Spanish-only participation when the materials are offered in both languages for addresses that are not likely to have Spanish-speakers. We offer some thoughts on these results and directions for future research, especially with respect to collecting data by the Internet.

Chinese Medicine Protein and Peptide in Gene and Cell Therapy

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinlu Feng ◽  
Zifei Yin ◽  
Daniel Zhang ◽  
Arun Srivastava ◽  
Chen Ling
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Cell Therapy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Promising Strategy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Gene And Cell Therapy ◽  
Proteins And Peptides

The success of gene and cell therapy in clinic during the past two decades as well as our expanding ability to manipulate these biomaterials are leading to new therapeutic options for a wide range of inherited and acquired diseases. Combining conventional therapies with this emerging field is a promising strategy to treat those previously-thought untreatable diseases. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has evolved for thousands of years in China and still plays an important role in human health. As part of the active ingredients of TCM, proteins and peptides have attracted long-term enthusiasm of researchers. More recently, they have been utilized in gene and cell therapy, resulting in promising novel strategies to treat both cancer and non-cancer diseases. This manuscript presents a critical review on this field, accompanied with perspectives on the challenges and new directions for future research in this emerging frontier.

Twitter Users’ Displays of Affect in the Global Warming Debate

2021 ◽  
pp. 004728162110078
Author(s):  
Shanna Cameron ◽  
Alexandra Russell ◽  
Luke Brake ◽  
Katherine Fredlund ◽  
Angela Morris
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Technical Communication ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Climate Change Research ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
Twitter Users

This article engages with recent discussions in the field of technical communication that call for climate change research that moves beyond the believer/denier dichotomy. For this study, our research team coded 900 tweets about climate change and global warming for different emotions in order to understand how Twitter users rely on affect rhetorically. Our findings use quantitative content analysis to challenge current assumptions about writing and affect on social media, and our results indicate a number of arenas for future research on affect, global warming, and rhetoric.

scholarly journals Co-Creating New Directions for Service Robots in Hospitality and Tourism

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Francesc Fusté-Forné ◽  
Tazim Jamal
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Service Robots ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Tourism Management ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Hospitality And Tourism ◽  
New Research

Research on the relationship between automation services and tourism has been rapidly growing in recent years and has led to a new service landscape where the role of robots is gaining both practical and research attention. This paper builds on previous reviews and undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the research literature to discuss opportunities and challenges presented by the use of service robots in hospitality and tourism. Management and ethical issues are identified and it is noted that practical and ethical issues (roboethics) continue to lack attention. Going forward, new directions are urgently needed to inform future research and practice. Legal and ethical issues must be proactively addressed, and new research paradigms developed to explore the posthumanist and transhumanist transitions that await. In addition, closer attention to the potential of “co-creation” for addressing innovations in enhanced service experiences in hospitality and tourism is merited. Among others, responsibility, inclusiveness and collaborative human-robot design and implementation emerge as important principles to guide future research and practice in this area.

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