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What makes citizens likely to believe and spread fake news?

Irene Cruz, Daniel Ortín and Jaume Suau, Universitat Ramon Llull
Project selected in the Social Research Call, 2021

Fake news is a threat to democracy, and therefore it is crucial to understand how it operates. This study presents the results of an experiment in which real and fake news stories from different news media outlets were presented to 2,500 research participants. These news narratives represented the most relevant misinformation at the time of the survey, and participants had to decide whether each news item was true or false and whether or not they would share it. They also answered questions about their thoughts and beliefs, political positions, and personal circumstances in order to identify the factors associated with their trust in a news story and the likelihood of their sharing it.
Key points
  • 1
       Trust assigned to the news media brand increased the perceived truthfulness of the news story, regardless of whether it was based on real or fake information.
  • 2
       A positive statement in the headline increased the perceived truthfulness and the likelihood of the story being shared.
  • 3
       While higher levels of (self-assessed) previous knowledge on the topic could not predict the perceived truthfulness given to fake news stories, it did increase the likelihood of sharing, and thus spreading them.
  • 4
       Identifying oneself as being on the political right or sharing core beliefs expressed in the story ‒ such as believing that there should be a death penalty for certain crimes or believing that abortion should be banned ‒ was associated with higher perceived truthfulness given to fake news and the likelihood of sharing it.
242020

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