Flattening the Curve of Fake News in the Epoch of Infodemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-161
Author(s):  
Oluwole Olumide Durodolu ◽  
Collence Takaingenhamo Chisita ◽  
Tinyiko Vivian Dube
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Globally, no country has been spared by the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic that continues to wreak havoc on the socio-economic and political stability of governments and communities. The oxymoronic nature of fake news raises many questions with regards to the issues of authenticity because the concept of news is underpinned by verifiability. While fake news lacks variability, it is surprising that its digital imprint on the social media platforms continues to leave indelible marks that will undermine democracy, responsible journalism, and the benefits of the digital media. It is against this background that this chapter seeks to find strategies to flatten the curve of fake news in the epoch of the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic, an epistemic challenge. The chapter is based on a positivist research methodology that sought to gather views from the study respondents on their epistemic experiences with fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic. It seeks to gather views to counter the upsurge of fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Budaya Berhibur Menerusi Aplikasi Smule Dalam Karya Arca Instalasi

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-52
Author(s):  
Aznan Omar ◽  
◽  
Syed Alwi Syed Abu Bakar ◽  
Mahizan Hijaz Muhammad ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Digital Entertainment ◽  
Social Media Platforms

This research project is an interpretation of a societal phenomenon in terms of the culture of using digital application for leisure and entertainment especially regarding the human behaviour and its obsession of using these applications in the social media platforms. This idea was translated by using the idea of an installation of a fabricated sculpture. The idea of how the digital media plays a major role for leisure and its obsession was inspired by the artist Scott Snibbe. This reference includes on how netizens utilize and share their interests and interactions with these digital media, games and other kinds of digital media entertainments. The method used for this practical studio research are through self critical evaluation, studio experimentation and contextual reviews. This research project was intended to contribute to the field of fine arts in terms of collecting symbolic visual narratives and its issues of the collective culture in regarding of leisure and entertainment and its popularity as a life style today. With hope this research project will give a major impact in terms of understanding towards its trend and the digital entertainment itself. The variation, the ever changing content of its application has impacted the popular culture itself through its spirit and behaviour, the wants and needs projected by the new expression of consumerism.

scholarly journals Conspiracy beliefs and vaccination intent for COVID-19 in an infodemic

PLoS ONE ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. e0261559
Author(s):  
Ali Ghaddar ◽  
Sanaa Khandaqji ◽  
Zeinab Awad ◽  
Rawad Kansoun
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Viral Spread ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conspiracy Beliefs ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Guidelines And Recommendations

Background The massive, free and unrestricted exchange of information on the social media during the Covid-19 pandemic has set fertile grounds for fear, uncertainty and the rise of fake news related to the virus. This “viral” spread of fake news created an “infodemic” that threatened the compliance with public health guidelines and recommendations. Objective This study aims to describe the trust in social media platforms and the exposure to fake news about COVID-19 in Lebanon and to explore their association with vaccination intent. Methods In this cross-sectional study conducted in Lebanon during July–August, 2020, a random sample of 1052 participants selected from a mobile-phone database responded to an anonymous structured questionnaire after obtaining informed consent (response rate = 40%). The questionnaire was conducted by telephone and measured socio-demographics, sources and trust in sources of information and exposure to fake news, social media activity, perceived threat and vaccination intent. Results Results indicated that the majority of participants (82%) believed that COVID-19 is a threat and 52% had intention to vaccinate. Exposure to fake/ unverified news was high (19.7% were often and 63.8% were sometimes exposed, mainly to fake news shared through Watsapp and Facebook). Trust in certain information sources (WHO, MoPH and TV) increased while trust in others (Watsapp, Facebook) reduced vaccination intent against Covid-19. Believing in the man-made theory and the business control theory significantly reduced the likelihood of vaccination intent (Beta = 0.43; p = 0.01 and Beta = -0.29; p = 0.05) respectively. Conclusion In the context of the infodemic, understanding the role of exposure to fake news and of conspiracy believes in shaping healthy behavior is important for increasing vaccination intent and planning adequate response to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals A Framework for Interrogating Social Media Images to Reveal an Emergent Archive of War

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 196-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arijus Pleska ◽  
Andrew Hoskins ◽  
Karen Renaud
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Media Images ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Identification Techniques

The visual image has long been central to how war is seen, contested and legitimised, remembered and forgotten. Archives are pivotal to these ends as is their ownership and access, from state and other official repositories through to the countless photographs scattered and hidden from a collective understanding of what war looks like in individual collections and dusty attics. With the advent and rapid development of social media, however, the amateur and the professional, the illicit and the sanctioned, the personal and the official, and the past and the present, all seem to inhabit the same connected and chaotic space. However, to even begin to render intelligible the complexity, scale and volume of what war looks like in social media archives is a considerable task, given the limitations of any traditional human-based method of collection and analysis. We thus propose the production of a series of ‘snapshots’, using computer-aided extraction and identification techniques to try to offer an experimental way in to conceiving a new imaginary of war. We were particularly interested in testing to see if twentieth century wars, obviously initially captured via pre-digital means, had become more ‘settled’ over time in terms of their remediated presence today through their visual representations and connections on social media, compared with wars fought in digital media ecologies (i.e. those fought and initially represented amidst the volume and pervasiveness of social media images). To this end, we developed a framework for automatically extracting and analysing war images that appear in social media, using both the features of the images themselves, and the text and metadata associated with each image. The framework utilises a workflow comprising four core stages: (1) information retrieval, (2) data pre-processing, (3) feature extraction, and (4) machine learning. Our corpus was drawn from the social media platforms Facebook and Flickr.

Fake or real news? Understanding the gratifications and personality traits of individuals sharing fake news on social media platforms

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brinda Sampat ◽  
Sahil Raj
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
News Sharing

Purpose“Fake news” or misinformation sharing using social media sites into public discourse or politics has increased dramatically, over the last few years, especially in the current COVID-19 pandemic causing concern. However, this phenomenon is inadequately researched. This study examines fake news sharing with the lens of stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, uses and gratification theory (UGT) and big five personality traits (BFPT) theory to understand the motivations for sharing fake news and the personality traits that do so. The stimuli in the model comprise gratifications (pass time, entertainment, socialization, information sharing and information seeking) and personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness and neuroticism). The feeling of authenticating or instantly sharing news is the organism leading to sharing fake news, which forms the response in the study.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual model was tested by the data collected from a sample of 221 social media users in India. The data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling to determine the effects of UGT and personality traits on fake news sharing. The moderating role of the platform WhatsApp or Facebook was studied.Findings The results suggest that pass time, information sharing and socialization gratifications lead to instant sharing news on social media platforms. Individuals who exhibit extraversion, neuroticism and openness share news on social media platforms instantly. In contrast, agreeableness and conscientiousness personality traits lead to authentication news before sharing on the social media platform.Originality/value This study contributes to social media literature by identifying the user gratifications and personality traits that lead to sharing fake news on social media platforms. Furthermore, the study also sheds light on the moderating influence of the choice of the social media platform for fake news sharing.

Fake News Finds an Audience

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-222
Author(s):  
Erik P. Bucy ◽  
John E. Newhagen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Educational Strategy ◽  
Fake News ◽  
False Information ◽  
User Experiences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Systems

The vulnerabilities shown by media systems and individual users exposed to attacks on truth from fake news and computational propaganda in recent years should be considered in light of the characteristics and concerns surrounding big data, especially the volume and velocity of messages delivered over social media platforms that tax the average user’s capacity to determine their truth value in real time. For reasons explained by the psychology of information processing, a high percentage of fake news that reaches audiences is accepted as true, particularly when distractions and interruptions typify user experiences with technology. As explained in this essay, fake news thrives in environments lacking editorial policing and epistemological vigilance, making the social media milieu ideally suited for spreading false information. In response, we suggest the value of an educational strategy to combat the dilemma that digital disinformation poses to informed citizenship.

scholarly journals Propaganda through ‘reflexive control’ and the mediated construction of reality

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482090244
Author(s):  
Christopher Till
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Deceptive Advertising ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Political Intervention ◽  
Psychological Operations

The nature of reality has been a central concern of philosophy and the social sciences, but since the proliferation of social media, psychological operations have taken on greater visibility and significance in political action. ‘Fake news’ and micro-targeted and deceptive advertising in elections and votes has brought the tenuous character of political reality to the fore. The affordances of the Internet, World Wide Web and social media have enabled users to be mobilised to varying degrees of awareness for propaganda and disinformation campaigns both as producers and spreaders of content and as generators of data for profiling and targeting. This article will argue that social media platforms and the broader political economy of the Internet create the possibilities for online interactions and targeting which enable form of political intervention focused on the destabilisation of perceptions of reality and recruit users in the construction of new politically useful realities.

FNDNLSTM

2021 ◽  
pp. 218-232
Author(s):  
Steni Mol T. S. ◽  
P. S. Sreeja
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Long Short Term Memory ◽  
False News ◽  
Model Technique

In the present scenario, social media platforms have become more accessible sources for news. Social media posts need not always be truthful information. These posts are widely disseminated with little regard for the truth. It is necessary to realize the evolution and origins of false news patterns in order to improve the progression of quality news and combat fake news on social media. This chapter discusses the most frequently used social media (Facebook) and the type of information exchanged to solve this issue. This chapter proposes a novel framework based on the “Fake News Detection Network – Long Short-Term Memory” (FNDN-LSTM) model to discriminate between fake news and real news. The social media news dataset is to be taken and preprocessed using the TF BERT model (technique). The preprocessed data will be passed through a feature selection model, which will select the significant features for classification. The selected features will be passed through the FNDN-LSTM classification model for identifying fake news.

Facade of media and social media during COVID-19: A review

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 142-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumar Chandan Srivastava ◽  
Deepti Shrivastava ◽  
Kumar Gaurav Chhabra ◽  
Waqar Naqvi ◽  
Arti Sahu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Public Health Authorities ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Government ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

A novel coronavirus (COVID-19) arose in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Soon it spread to other countries worldwide to become a pandemic. Globally, governments enforced quarantine and social distancing measures to prevent the spread of the infection. Mass media and social media platforms played a crucial role in providing information regarding the Coronavirus. Since little is known about COVID-19, various fake news, misinformation and rumours spread across the digital media that panicked people into making panic decisions. The rapid spread of misinformation and stories via social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube became a vital concern of the government and public health authorities. Medical misinformation and unverifiable content about the COVID-19 pandemic are spreading on social media at an unprecedented pace. Mitigating the advent of rumours and misinformation during the COVID-19 epidemic is crucial, since misinformation and fake news creates panic, fear and anxiety among people, predisposing them to various mental health conditions. Instead of considering social media as a secondary medium, it should be utilised to convey important information. Besides, it allows citizens to address their queries directly. Several governments across the world have taken actions to contain the pandemic of misinformation, yet measures are required to prevent such communication complications.

Digital belongings: The intersections of social cohesion, connectivity and digital media

Ethnicities ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay M Marlowe ◽  
Allen Bartley ◽  
Francis Collins
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Contact ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms

The rapid proliferation and ongoing transformation of digital technologies and social media platforms have had a substantial influence on the participatory cultures of young people and their associated social connections. This social/digital nexus raises important questions of social cohesion, with digital technologies at once augmenting social interaction whilst simultaneously creating an uneven landscape of access for participation. To address this interface of the digital and the social, this paper presents a qualitative study of 24 tertiary students from ethnic minority backgrounds living in Auckland, New Zealand, who use social media. Incorporating a pre-screening questionnaire, a one-week social media diary and semi-structured interviews, this study presents the ways in which digital belongings influence participants' practices of friendship and family. The ways that connective media influence, and even constrain interaction alongside the politics of belongings, are theorised to further examine the meanings and experiences behind participants' social media usage and social contact. By integrating these ideas, this paper presents the ways in which young university students use social media and the extent to which digital interaction and networking influence social participation and social cohesion.

scholarly journals Social Media and the Electoral Politics of India

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 963-967
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Use Of Social Media

the use of social media has become a new strategy for the political parties during election campaign. The social media is playing a significant role in changing people’s perception towards politics, politicians and modes of political participation. The advent of budget smart phones and affordable data packages has given greater scope for people to voice their opinion on social and political issues. With accounts in every social media platforms, the political parties and their leaders are using it as a new space to mobilize people. Since 2014 Lok Sabha election, the social media is playing a pro-active role in deciding which party will win the election. While this has led to increased speed of spread of information and news, it has also left the ordinary people vulnerable to fake news and exposed them to ‘hate speech’. One hand, the social media is making Indian democracy more inclusive thereby giving citizens the space to express their opinion. On the other hand, it is also creating a gap between different communities by spreading fake news and propaganda. Hence, there should be some kind of restrictions to using it. The misuse can lead to chaos and instability in a democracy.

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