scholarly journals Detecting fake news on Facebook: The role of emotional intelligence

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0246757
Author(s):  
Stephanie Preston ◽  
Anthony Anderson ◽  
David J. Robertson ◽  
Mark P. Shephard ◽  
Narisong Huhe

The proliferation of fake news on social media is now a matter of considerable public and governmental concern. In 2016, the UK EU referendum and the US Presidential election were both marked by social media misinformation campaigns, which have subsequently reduced trust in democratic processes. More recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the acceptance of fake news has been shown to pose a threat to public health. Research on how to combat the false acceptance of fake news is still in its infancy. However, recent studies have started to focus on the psychological factors which might make some individuals less likely to fall for fake news. Here, we adopt that approach to assess whether individuals who show high levels of ‘emotional intelligence’ (EQ) are less likely to fall for fake news items. That is, are individuals who are better able to disregard the emotionally charged content of such items, better equipped to assess the veracity of the information. Using a sample of UK participants, an established measure of EQ and a novel fake news detection task, we report a significant positive relationship between individual differences in emotional intelligence and fake news detection ability. We also report a similar effect for higher levels of educational attainment, and we report some exploratory qualitative fake news judgement data. Our findings are discussed in terms of their applicability to practical short term (i.e. current Facebook user data) and medium term (i.e. emotional intelligence training) interventions which could enhance fake news detection.

Author(s):  
Lena Nadarevic ◽  
Rolf Reber ◽  
Anne Josephine Helmecke ◽  
Dilara Köse

Abstract To better understand the spread of fake news in the Internet age, it is important to uncover the variables that influence the perceived truth of information. Although previous research identified several reliable predictors of truth judgments—such as source credibility, repeated information exposure, and presentation format—little is known about their simultaneous effects. In a series of four experiments, we investigated how the abovementioned factors jointly affect the perceived truth of statements (Experiments 1 and 2) and simulated social media postings (Experiments 3 and 4). Experiment 1 explored the role of source credibility (high vs. low vs. no source information) and presentation format (with vs. without a picture). In Experiments 2 and 3, we additionally manipulated repeated exposure (yes vs. no). Finally, Experiment 4 examined the role of source credibility (high vs. low) and type of repetition (congruent vs. incongruent vs. no repetition) in further detail. In sum, we found no effect of presentation format on truth judgments, but strong, additive effects of source credibility and repetition. Truth judgments were higher for information presented by credible sources than non-credible sources and information without sources. Moreover, congruent (i.e., verbatim) repetition increased perceived truth whereas semantically incongruent repetition decreased perceived truth, irrespectively of the source. Our findings show that people do not rely on a single judgment cue when evaluating a statement’s truth but take source credibility and their meta-cognitive feelings into account.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-299
Author(s):  
Michael Kelly

This article introduces the special number of French Cultural Studies commemorating the role of Brian Rigby as the journal’s first Managing Editor. It situates his contribution in the emergence of cultural history and French cultural studies during the rapid expansion of higher education from the 1960s in France, the UK, the US and other countries. It suggests that these new areas of study saw cultural activities in a broader social context and opened the way to a wider understanding of culture, in which popular culture played an increasingly important part. It argues that the study of popular culture can illuminate some of the most mundane experiences of everyday life, and some of the most challenging. It can also help to understand the rapidly changing cultural environment in which our daily lives are now conducted.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M Ross ◽  
David Gertler Rand ◽  
Gordon Pennycook

Why is misleading partisan content believed and shared? An influential account posits that political partisanship pervasively biases reasoning, such that engaging in analytic thinking exacerbates motivated reasoning and, in turn, the acceptance of hyperpartisan content. Alternatively, it may be that susceptibility to hyperpartisan misinformation is explained by a lack of reasoning. Across two studies using different subject pools (total N = 1977), we had participants assess true, false, and hyperpartisan headlines taken from social media. We found no evidence that analytic thinking was associated with increased polarization for either judgments about the accuracy of the headlines or willingness to share the news content on social media. Instead, analytic thinking was broadly associated with an increased capacity to discern between true headlines and either false or hyperpartisan headlines. These results suggest that reasoning typically helps people differentiate between low and high quality news content, rather than facilitating political bias.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 60-63
Author(s):  
Jonas Harvard ◽  
Mats Hyvönen ◽  
Ingela Wadbring

In the last decade, the development of small, remotely operated multicopters with cameras, so-called drones, has made aerial photography easily available. Consumers and institutions now use drones in a variety of ways, both for personal entertainment and professionally. The application of drones in media production and journalism is of particular interest, as it provides insight into the complex interplay between technology, the economic and legal constraints of the media market, professional cultures and audience preferences. The thematic issue <em>Journalism from Above: Drones, the Media, and the Transformation of Journalistic Practice</em> presents new research concerning the role of drones in journalism and media production. The issue brings together scholars representing a variety of approaches and perspectives. A broad selection of empirical cases from Finland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US form the basis of an exploration of the changing relations between the media, technology and society. The articles address topics such as: Adaption of drone technology in the newsrooms; audience preferences and reactions in a changing media landscape; the relation between journalists and public authorities who use drones; and attitudes from journalistic practitioners as well as historical and future perspectives.


Author(s):  
Doni Sahputra ◽  
Ade Parlaungan Nasution ◽  
Siti Lam’ah Nasution

This study aims to analyze the effect of entrepreneurial intelligence through the role of social media on the performance of SMEs in increasing sales. The type of research used is explanatory research with Accidental Sampling technique. The number of samples determined was 80 respondents. Data analysis in this study using SmartPLS version 3.0 software. The results showed that entrepreneurial intelligence consisting of elements of financial intelligence, emotional intelligence, social intelligence and spiritual intelligence had an effect on the performance of SMEs through the role of social media, social media had an effect on performance and sales and performance had an effect on sales.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174276652110399
Author(s):  
Jane O’Boyle ◽  
Carol J Pardun

A manual content analysis compares 6019 Twitter comments from six countries during the 2016 US presidential election. Twitter comments were positive about Trump and negative about Clinton in Russia, the US and also in India and China. In the UK and Brazil, Twitter comments were largely negative about both candidates. Twitter sources for Clinton comments were more frequently from journalists and news companies, and still more negative than positive in tone. Topics on Twitter varied from those in mainstream news media. This foundational study expands communications research on social media, as well as political communications and international distinctions.


Author(s):  
Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste ◽  
Juan Carlos Rodríguez

This chapter provides a balance for the volume, accounting for the implications of recent political shift in the US, much of which has been linked to social media. It emphasizes how the texts included in this collection also suggest the speed with which technology is playing a preeminent role in cultural, political, and social relations, be it north or south of the border. In the end, it seeks to strike a balance between the scholarly worlds in Portuguese and Spanish and academic spheres of the Anglo domain, clarifying the volume's intention not to pontificate, but rather to serve as a bridge between the Latin American digital humanities and the Anglo academe in the US and the UK, in a fashion as independent as possible to hegemonic proclivities.


Author(s):  
Julian Germann

This chapter reviews the most prominent explanations of the global rise of neoliberalism provided within critical International Political Economy: (1) a state-centered argument, which holds that neoliberalism was imposed by the United States in a bid to reassert its global dominance; (2) a class-based argument, which sees neoliberalism as the project of globalizing elites who sought to restore their corporate profits and power; and (3) an ideational argument, which describes the rise of neoliberalism as a paradigmatic shift in economic ideas. The chapter argues that these accounts share a common bias: they pivot unduly on the Anglo-American world and are unable to capture the peculiar German contribution to the origins of neoliberalism. As a result, they misread the rise of Germany to the apex of a neoliberal Europe as a belated repetition of the same global movement spearheaded by the US and the UK.


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