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.

Alternative news on social media in Norway

Alternative news media in Norway have become visible in public debates. Partly because of news sharing on social media. Social media has become an arena for news, information, and public debate, and has also become a place to fight for the news agenda. The present study examines news sharing in social media in Norway and how right-wing alternative news outlets use social media to impact the news agenda. These are small organizations with only a handful of employees, but they have very proactive readers and feature a considerable amount of user-generated content. They are critical of immigration, particularly from Muslim countries, and of the political elite. They mimic traditional media in the way they organize and label their content, but their reporting is more subjective. The present study uses quantitative content analysis to reveal which topics are the most shared on social media, and from which news type of news organizations they come. It also looks at how news sharing differed in the days following a series of terrorist attacks and how the pattern changed during the course of a normal day. This leads to a discussion on participatory journalism and how news sharing can be seen as a part of the public debate.

The News Sharing Gap

ABSTRACT – Current literature on online news sharing presents a range of methods and results, alongside contradictory explanations for the phenomenon. To disentangle this, we compared three countries with contrasting levels of political stability (Brazil, Canada and the US). A content analysis of articles (n = 1.658) posted in 2016, on the main news pages in Facebook for each country, shows that the Canadian news pages presented far less news sharing on national politics conflicts than Brazil and the US did. We discuss how this shows the relevance of political context in explaining both news routines and shareworthiness. RESUMO – A literatura sobre compartilhamento de notícias online apresenta uma gama de métodos e resultados com linhas contraditórias de explicação para o fenômeno. Para destrinchar o problema, comparamos três países com níveis contrastantes de estabilidade política (Brasil, Canadá e EUA). Uma análise de conteúdo de notícias (n = 1.658) postadas nas principais páginas noticiosas do Facebook de cada país em 2016 mostra que as páginas canadenses apresentaram muito menos compartilhamento sobre conflitos políticos nacionais do que nos EUA e Brasil. Discutimos como isso mostra a relevância do contexto político para explicar as rotinas produtivas e a compartilhabilidade. RESUMEN – La literatura actual sobre el intercambio de noticias en línea presenta una variedad de métodos y resultados junto con líneas de explicación contradictorias para el fenómeno. Para desenredar esto, comparamos tres países con niveles contrastantes de estabilidad política (Brasil, Canadá y EE. UU.). Un análisis de contenido de los artículos (n = 1.658) publicados en las principales páginas de noticias en Facebook de cada país en 2016 muestra que las páginas de noticias canadienses presentaron mucho menos intercambio de noticias sobre conflictos políticos nacionales. Lo contrario ocurrió en Brasil y Estados Unidos. Discutimos cómo esto muestra la relevancia del contexto político para explicar tanto las rutinas informativas como las compartidas.

News by Popular Demand: Ideological Congruence, Issue Salience, and Media Reputation in News Sharing

Social media news sharing has become a central subject of scholarly research in communication studies. To test current theories, it is of an utmost importance to estimate the meaningful parameters of news sharing behavior from observational data. In this article, we retrieve measures of ideological congruence, issue salience, and media reputation to explain news sharing in social media. We describe how the proposed statistical model connects to different strands of the news sharing literature. We then exemplify the usefulness of the model with an analysis of the relationship between ideological congruence and issue salience. Results show that if ideology and salience correlate with each other, the preferences of ideologues (i.e., users who give higher weight to ideological congruence) will be overrepresented in observational data. This will result in the heightened perceptions of polarization. We test the performance of the model using data from Brazil, Argentina, and the United States.

A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook

In this study, we address the role of emotions in political news sharing on Facebook to better understand the complex relationship between journalism, emotions, and politics. Categorizing Facebook Reactions (particularly, the Sad, Angry, Love, and Wow Reactions) according to the discrete emotions model, we evaluate how positive versus negative political content relates to emotional responses, and how this consequentially influences the degree to which articles are shared across social media in the context of an election. We focus on the landmark 2018 Mexican elections to enable a nuanced conversation on how cues of user emotion predict the far-reaching dissemination of news articles on Facebook during a moment of heightened political attention. Our findings demonstrate a negativity bias in news sharing and engagement, showing an outsized prevalence of anger in response to political news. In addition, we provide evidence of a novel sadness bias in the sharing of political coverage, suggesting that emotions considered as deactivating should be reevaluated in the context of social media.