Finding “fake” in the news: the relationship between social media use, political knowledge, epistemic political efficacy and fake news literacy

IF 3.1 3区管理学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Online Information Review Pub Date : 2024-07-11 DOI:10.1108/oir-03-2024-0140

Bingbing Zhang, A. Holton, Homero Gil de Zúñiga

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

PurposeIn the past few years, research focusing on misinformation, referred to broadly as fake news, has experienced revived attention. Past studies have focused on explaining the ways in which people correct it online and on social media. However, fewer studies have dealt with the ways in which people are able to identify fake news (i.e. fake news literacy). This study contributes to the latter by theoretically connect people’s general social media use, political knowledge and political epistemic efficacy with individuals’ fake news literacy levels.Design/methodology/approachA diverse and representative two-wave panel survey in the United States was conducted (June 2019 for Wave 1, October 2019 for Wave 2). We performed cross-sectional, lagged and autoregressive regression analyses to examined how social media us, people’s political knowledge and political epistemic efficacy are related to their fake news literacy.FindingsResults suggest that the more people used social media, were politically knowledgeable and considered they were able to find the truth in politics (i.e. epistemic political efficacy), the more likely they were to discern whether the news is fake. Implications of helping media outlets and policy makers be better positioned to provide the public with corrective action mechanisms in the struggle against fake news are discussed.Research limitations/implicationsThe measurement instrument employed in the study relies on subjects’ self-assessment, as opposed to unobtrusive trace (big) digital data, which may not completely capture the nuances of people’s social media news behaviors.Practical implicationsThis study sheds light on how the way people understand politics and gain confidence in finding political truth may be key elements when confronting and discerning fake news. With the help of these results, journalists, media outlets and policymakers may be better positioned to provide citizens with efficient, preemptive and corrective action mechanisms in the struggle against misinformation.Originality/valueRecent literature highlights the importance of literacy education to contest fake news, but little is known about what specific mechanisms would contribute to foster and reinvigorate people’s fake news literacy. This study helps address this gap.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2024-0140

查看原文本刊更多论文

从新闻中发现 "假"：社交媒体使用、政治知识、认识论政治效能和假新闻素养之间的关系

目的在过去几年中，有关错误信息（泛指假新闻）的研究重新引起了人们的关注。过去的研究侧重于解释人们在网上和社交媒体上纠正错误信息的方式。然而，关于人们如何识别假新闻（即假新闻素养）的研究较少。本研究从理论上将人们的一般社交媒体使用、政治知识和政治认识效能与个人的假新闻素养水平联系起来，为后者做出了贡献。设计/方法/途径我们在美国进行了一次具有多样性和代表性的两波面板调查（第1波为2019年6月，第2波为2019年10月）。我们进行了横截面、滞后和自回归分析，研究了社交媒体的使用、人们的政治知识和政治认识效能与假新闻素养之间的关系。结果结果表明，人们使用社交媒体越多、政治知识越丰富、认为自己能够找到政治真相（即政治认识效能），他们就越有可能辨别新闻是否是假的。本研究采用的测量工具依赖于受试者的自我评估，而非不显眼的跟踪（大）数字数据，这可能无法完全捕捉到人们社交媒体新闻行为的细微差别。本研究揭示了人们理解政治的方式以及发现政治真相的信心可能是面对和辨别假新闻时的关键因素。在这些结果的帮助下，记者、媒体机构和政策制定者可能会更好地为公民提供高效、先发制人和纠正错误信息的行动机制。原创性/价值近期的文献强调了素养教育对抵制假新闻的重要性，但人们对哪些具体机制有助于培养和振兴人们的假新闻素养知之甚少。本研究有助于填补这一空白。同行评议本文的同行评议历史见：https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2024-0140。

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来源期刊

Online Information Review 工程技术-计算机：信息系统

CiteScore

6.90

自引率

16.10%

发文量

审稿时长

6 months

期刊介绍： The journal provides a multi-disciplinary forum for scholars from a range of fields, including information studies/iSchools, data studies, internet studies, media and communication studies and information systems. Publishes research on the social, political and ethical aspects of emergent digital information practices and platforms, and welcomes submissions that draw upon critical and socio-technical perspectives in order to address these developments. Welcomes empirical, conceptual and methodological contributions on any topics relevant to the broad field of digital information and communication, however we are particularly interested in receiving submissions that address emerging issues around the below topics. Coverage includes (but is not limited to): •Online communities, social networking and social media, including online political communication; crowdsourcing; positive computing and wellbeing. •The social drivers and implications of emerging data practices, including open data; big data; data journeys and flows; and research data management. •Digital transformations including organisations’ use of information technologies (e.g. Internet of Things and digitisation of user experience) to improve economic and social welfare, health and wellbeing, and protect the environment. •Developments in digital scholarship and the production and use of scholarly content. •Online and digital research methods, including their ethical aspects.