A Study on the Relationship between News Literacy and the Ability to Identify Fake News

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Sook Choi ◽  
Sungjoong Kim ◽  
Sung Kyum Cho
Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
João Pedro Baptista ◽  
Elisete Correia ◽  
Anabela Gradim ◽  
Valeriano Piñeiro-Naval

The relationship between a subject’s ideological persuasion with the belief and spread of fake news is the object of our study. Departing from a left- vs. right-wing framework, a questionnaire sought to position subjects on this political-ideological spectrum and demanded them to evaluate five pro-left and pro-right fake and real news, totaling 20 informational products. The results show the belief and dissemination of (fake) news are related to the political ideology of the participants, with right-wing subjects exhibiting a greater tendency to accept fake news, regardless of whether it is pro-left or pro-right fake news. These findings contradict the confirmation bias and may suggest that a greater influence of factors such as age, the level of digital news literacy and psychological aspects in the judgment of fake news are at play. Older and less educated respondents indicated they believed and would disseminate fake news at greater rates. Regardless of the ideology they favor, the Portuguese attributed higher credibility to the sample’s real news, a fact that can be meaningful regarding the fight against disinformation in Portugal and elsewhere.


Universitas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Víctor Castillo-Riquelme ◽  
Patricio Hermosilla-Urrea ◽  
Juan P. Poblete-Tiznado ◽  
Christian Durán-Anabalón

The dissemination of fake news embodies a pressing problem for democracy that is exacerbated by theubiquity of information available on the Internet and by the exploitation of those who, appealing to theemotionality of audiences, have capitalized on the injection of falsehoods into the social fabric. In thisstudy, through a cross-sectional, correlational and non-experimental design, the relationship betweencredibility in the face of fake news and some types of dysfunctional thoughts was explored in a sampleof Chilean university students. The results reveal that greater credibility in fake news is associated withhigher scores of magical, esoteric and naively optimistic thinking, beliefs that would be the meetingpoint for a series of cognitive biases that operate in the processing of information. The highest correlationis found with the paranormal beliefs facet and, particularly, with ideas about the laws of mentalattraction, telepathy and clairvoyance. Significant differences were also found in credibility in fake newsas a function of the gender of the participants, with the female gender scoring higher on average thanthe male gender. These findings highlight the need to promote critical thinking, skepticism and scientificattitude in all segments of society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Paillard-Borg

Abstract Background The relationship between journalists and populations is complicated and the subject of “fake news” is one of these related issues. Despite the controversy, journalistic media are the ground to a well-informed society and as such journalists have the potential to be important actors in the pursuit of population health. At the same time, frustration against journalistic media has increased globally and vulnerable and so-called ’invisible’ groups feel neglected by the media. Methods The Circular Analytical Dialogue is an innovative method for examining the dialogue between journalists and citizens and investigating the role of journalism in promoting social cohesion, population health and democracy. Results The preliminary results of a pilot study in Japan on the topic of migration, using the Circular Analytical Dialogue, show that the dynamic between the participants and the journalists was valued by all parties as it allowed a profound and valuable dialogue. The journalist was most appreciative of the feedback of the participants as it opened alternative perspectives that were not considered beforehand. Conclusions The Circular Analytical Dialogue has the dual ambition to be a research as well as a journalistic tool and the knowledge generated with this method is intended to be used to strengthen understanding about the importance of journalism for healthy democratic societies. Key messages The Circular Analytical Dialogue method reinforces the importance of academic activism strongly related to sustainable societies. The Circular Analytical Dialogue method can potentially contribute to the empowerment of populations fundamental to population health.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1119-1128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin P. Calvillo ◽  
Bryan J. Ross ◽  
Ryan J. B. Garcia ◽  
Thomas J. Smelter ◽  
Abraham M. Rutchick

The present research examined the relationship between political ideology and perceptions of the threat of COVID-19. Due to Republican leadership’s initial downplaying of COVID-19 and the resulting partisan media coverage, we predicted that conservatives would perceive it as less threatening. Two preregistered online studies supported this prediction. Conservatism was associated with perceiving less personal vulnerability to the virus and the virus’s severity as lower, and stronger endorsement of the beliefs that the media had exaggerated the virus’s impact and that the spread of the virus was a conspiracy. Conservatism also predicted less accurate discernment between real and fake COVID-19 headlines and fewer accurate responses to COVID-19 knowledge questions. Path analyses suggested that presidential approval, knowledge about COVID-19, and news discernment mediated the relationship between ideology and perceived vulnerability. These results suggest that the relationship between political ideology and threat perceptions may depend on issue framing by political leadership and media.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-51
Author(s):  
Harun Güney Akgül

AbstractThis study examines how populist politicians made sense of the issue of fake news. They generally consider fake news as a valuable propaganda tool for their political interests. According to the Reuters Digital News Report in 2018, Turkey ranks first on the list of countries where people complain about completely made-up stories. The study researched how fake news is helping facilitate the rise of populism in Turkey. There is plenty of fake news aired by pro-government media. Therefore, the Turkish government is emerging as a suspect behind the fake news cycle. The fact is that most of the fake news is published for the benefit of the government. Research shows that, paradoxically, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is regarded as one of the most important populist politicians in the world. These two different indicators can be valuable data in revealing the relationship between fake news and populist politicians. The aim of this paper is to consider the significance of this apparent relationship between fake news and President Erdogan. In order to do this, a critical discourse analysis method was based on the fake news about the pastor Brunson case, because Turkish readers came across a huge amount of fake news regarding his case in pro-government media.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-53
Author(s):  
Paul Stefan

Ukrainian translation: Stefan, P. (2018). Sehen lernen. Nietzsche, Tramp und die neusten Medien. In Kotzur, M. (Hrsg). Wenn Argumente scheitern. Aufklärung in Zeiten des Populismus, 33-52. Münster: Mentis. Starting from the scandal about Trump’s “creative” statements about the number of people who attended his inauguration ceremony, this essay discusses the difference between truth and fake news from a Nietzschean perspective. It could seem as if Nietzsche proposed a justification for people like Trump who have a “flexible” understanding of the relationship between truth and lie. It will be shown, however, that while Nietzsche indeed critiques a naïve understanding of objectivity, his perspectivism is connected to an ethics of self-improvement which implies striving for a better knowledge of things by learning to see it from different angles. People like Trump who is unwilling to take pivotal aspects of a situation into consideration, clearly fail to meet the standards of this ethics.


Soft Power ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-129
Author(s):  
Mirko Alagna

Fake news, Post-Truth are now entries into the ordinary language of contemporary politics to denote - with anxiety and concern - the definitive rupture of the relationship between truth and politics. A relationship that has never been idyllic and that cannot be, constitutively, idyllic, but which now seems to have reached a point of no return. Glossing the reflections of Hannah Arendt in Truth and Politics and pointing out two areas of “political licence” - that is, two areas where, inevitably, politics cannot be judged on parameters of truth - this contribution aims to treat the weakness of shared truths not as a cause of the crisis of democracies, but as a symptom of a more radical problem, an extreme subjectivism that leads to loneliness and intolerance towards any relationship based on trust.


2020 ◽  
pp. 107769582093098
Author(s):  
Naomi R. Johnson ◽  
Kris Paal ◽  
Erin Waggoner ◽  
Karen Bleier

Concerns about “fake news,” misinformation, and disinformation have led to increasingly urgent calls for News Literacy (NL) education interventions and assessments of their effectiveness. New technologies create ongoing changes in the ways people consume news, which means that NL education assessments must be continuously updated and adapted to address current trends. The purpose of this study was to augment existing NL assessments to incorporate recent aspects of hard news consumption in digital news environments by testing two new scales: the Headline Literacy Scale and the Hard News Standards Knowledge Scale. The results demonstrated both scales were reliable and valid.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khristina Khristova ◽  
◽  
◽  

The paper examines the impact of fake news on the relationship between companies and their strategic audiences. The text is structured into two parts. The focus in the first part is on the structure of corporate communications and the model of successful corporate policy presented as a projection of the idea of the business of trust. The second part highlights the main aspects of the development of the cosmetic giant „L’Oreal”, which has preserved its image as a strong brand and an ethical company in the conditions of hypercompetitiveness and fake news. The study is based on Van Rieland Fombrun’s theory of corporate communications as a polyfunctional concept and on Kotler’s idea of market-oriented strategic planning, providing an advantage to firms in situations of risk and dynamic social transformations.


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