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

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.

Building a Pillowfort: Political Tensions in Platform Design and Policy

Social media platforms make trade-offs in their design and policy decisions to attract users and stand out from other platforms. These decisions are influenced by a number of considerations, e.g. what kinds of content moderation to deploy or what kinds of resources a platform has access to. Their choices play into broader political tensions; social media platforms are situated within a social context that frames their impact, and they can have politics through their design that enforce power structures and serve existing authorities. We turn to Pillowfort, a small social media platform, to examine these political tensions as a case study. Using a discourse analysis, we examine public discussion posts between staff and users as they negotiate the site's development over a period of two years. Our findings illustrate the tensions in navigating the politics that users bring with them from previous platforms, the difficulty of building a site's unique identity and encouraging commitment, and examples of how design decisions can both foster and break trust with users. Drawing from these findings, we discuss how the success and failure of new social media platforms are impacted by political influences on design and policy decisions.

Examining science communication on Reddit: From an “Assembled” to a “Disassembling” approach

This study examines science communication within Ask Me Anything sessions hosted by US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists on Reddit. In addition to considering a unique social media platform, our work makes an important contribution in revealing the limitations of a traditional approach to studying science communication and modeling an alternative. First, using an “assembled” approach, we qualitatively explore themes in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists’ posts and consider how they reflect the goals of “deficit” and “dialogue” models. Second, using a “disassembling” approach, inspired by Davies and Horst and actor-network theory, we more deeply examine our experiences studying the Ask Me Anything sessions. We then demonstrate how this alternative approach identifies “hidden” human and non-human actants that may have shaped science communication as “mediators.” We use these insights to reject the common assumption that science communication on social media occurs solely and directly between scientists and publics.

ANALISIS FOLLOWING TO FOLLOWERS RATIO TIKTOK PADA 5 ARTIS TIKTOK DENGAN FOLLOWERS TERBANYAK

TikTok is a social media application launched by a Chinese company. TikTok allows users to create 15-second videos accompanied by music, filters and some other creative features. In Indonesia there are 30.7 million users active, making Indonesia the country with the largest TikTok users in this world. The large number of active TikTok users in Indonesia can certainly provide an opportunity for Followers to make the TikTok platform a social media platform Follow. The 5 Most Followers in Indonesia who use TikTok as a Follow platforms, namely: Sandy S.S, Cahyanirynn, Ria Ricis, Harna Bhagwani, Saalhaerid The purpose of this study is to calculate the credibility of the account performance of the 5 Most Followers TikTok in Indonesia. The method used for this research is quantitative exploratory method. The results of this study indicate that the most Tiktok accounts are Ria Ricis who gets the first rank and has the most credibility for the performance of Tiktok Followers accounts.

Social Media User-Influencer Congruity

This paper explores and inspects the effect of user-influencer congruence on social media platforms para-social relationships and consumer brand engagement (COBRA). In addition, the paper inspects the influence of para-social relationships on consumers brand in addition to the influence of social media platform type in moderating the effect of personality on para-social relationships and COBRA. A conceptual framework is developed to demonstrate the proposed relationships. Data was collected using online questionnaires, with 180 valid responses. The results suggest that user-influencer personality congruence is a salient predictor of para-social relationships and COBRA and that para-social relationship(s) have a substantial impact on customer brand engagement. Nevertheless, the results also indicated that social media platform type do not influence the relationship between congruity and para-social relationships or COBRA.

Creative E-Pedagogy in Massive Grammar E-Tutoring via the Simultaneous Use of Social Media Platforms

With the new wave of young-minded, digitally-fluent, and tech-tethered instructors comes new creative e-pathways that build up novel e-pedagogies. More than ever before, innovative e-teaching modalities are needed to navigate the intricate socially-networked abyss where students and teachers alike have chosen to function in this pandemic period. That is why frameworks, however nascent they might be, are required to steer the learning ship, on more than one social media platform, to meet specific educational ends. In this light, this chapter presents a descriptive unobtrusive study which was conducted to map out an innovative e-mode of grammar instruction of a secondary e-tutor who was able to tutor a massive number of e-tutees simultaneously on Instagram and YouTube in the first phase, adding on, subsequently, Facebook to the e-instructional process. The findings unveil a framework of how to leverage or educationalize certain features of these cloud-based outlets concurrently and reach a more optimized e-method of multi-platform tutoring.

Role of Social Media in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Today, social networks and media have become an integral part of everyone's daily existence. The rising popularity of social media has increased tenfold during the times of COVID-19 when people were forced to isolate following social distancing norms. Between July 2020 and July 2021, active social users grew to 520 million. The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in the usage of digital platforms not only for entertainment purposes but also for educational and corporate reasons. Hence, the spread of information has increased excessively on every social media platform. This has resulted in an equal rise of false information. The term infodemic was widely introduced during COVID-19 to explain the harmful effects of misinformation through social media. The chapter, hence, argues that the advantages of social media surpasses the dangers of misinformation. It discusses the role of COVID-19 in digitalization and how social media has helped in provision of various industries.

Consulting Application a Dedicated Social Media platform to get Expert Advice

In today’s fast growing world, The Information is the most powerful tool. A Doctor is an expert in medical sciences, an Engineer is an expert in Technical things similarly a fitness trainer is an expert in fitness related things. But What if a Person has some problem like a technical problem and he is not an expert in technical things ? In such situations A Person wants to have some expert advice. Now to overcome such problems a person may want to communicate with someone who is an expert in his problem domain. So Our Goal of the project is to reduce the gap between the problem seeker and the experts.

The technology acceptance model revisited: empirical evidence from the tourism industry in Pakistan

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the adoption of social media platforms by tourists in Pakistan. Based on an adaptation of the technology acceptance model (TAM), this study assesses the factors that lead users to adopt these platforms.Design/methodology/approachA survey was administered to a convenience sample of 399 travelers who use social media in Pakistan. A Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using AMOS to evaluate convergent and discriminant validity as well as composite reliability. Structural equation modeling was applied to examine the causal relationship among all proposed constructs.FindingsThe findings reveal that the perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEoU) of a social media platform positively impact the behavioral intention of its users. The proposed constructs of compatibility, enjoyment, user expertise and e-trust all demonstrated their crucial roles in the adoption of a social media platform for tourism-related activities by enhancing the platform's PEoU and usefulness.Originality/valueThis research validates the relationship between PEoU and PU of a social media platform in the hospitality industry. Interestingly, this study has expanded TAM by validating the addition of four more constructs, (1) compatibility, (2) enjoyment, (3) e-trust, and (4) expertise, to add worth to this model regarding the understanding of social media usage in this specific industry. The findings are valuable both for managers and policymakers in the tourism sector in Pakistan, as the latter can utilize the results to entice a larger segment of social media users to the tourism industry.