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

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