The Spread and Impact of Fake News on Social Media: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

ABSTRACT:In this post-truth era, fake news on social media has emerged as a societal problem, where objective facts have increasingly become less influential. Although there is a recent spike in fake news research, it has progressed without a proper agenda or a theoretical framework and has been fragmented. This systematic literature review (SLR) aims to organize the fragmented literature on fake news, focusing on the psychosocial antecedents of its spread on social media and the impact due to such spread. Accordingly, we systematically analyzed fifty-six empirical studies using standard protocols to delineate the current research profile and future research areas. The research themes emerging from the SLR are (a) the need for a theoretical and methodological grounding for understanding the fake news problem on social media; (b) the person, behavior, and environmental factors for the fake news spread on social media; and (c) social, economic, and psychological impacts due to fake news on social media. This study also argues for expanding the current research horizon by relying on new research methods and focusing on under-investigated psychosocial factors. The study may help policymakers plan and execute human-centric policy measures for combating fake news on social media by focusing on an individual's psychosocial factors.