University Students’ Responses to Fake News on Social Media
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study examines how university students receive and respond to unverified information on social media, focusing on behaviors such as acceptance, verification, sharing, and passive reception. Applying the Dual-Process Theory, the findings suggest that students often rely on heuristic processing, meaning they tend to believe or ignore information based on its familiarity, popularity, or emotional appeal. The results also indicate that while many students believe they can detect fake news, their actual fact-checking behaviors are inconsistent. A significant portion of respondents admitted to having shared unverified information, while others simply received it passively without any response. This reveals a notable gap between skepticism and active verification. Therefore, there is a need for media literacy education programs and accuracy-focused interventions to encourage systematic information processing and reduce the risk of fake news dissemination among students.
Keywords:
Fake news response, fake news sharing behavior, fake news verification, social media.
References
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No. 8, 2020, pp. 1608.
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[48] R. Greifeneder, M. E. Jaffé, E. J. Newman, N. Schwarz, What is New and True 1 about Fake News?, In the Psychology of Fake News, Routledge, 2020, pp. 1-8.
[49] A. Bondielli, F. Marcelloni, A Survey on Fake News and Rumour Detection Techniques, Information Sciences, Vol. 497, 2019, pp. 38-55.
[50] L. Elder, R. Paul, Critical Thinking: Learn the Tools the Best Thinkers use, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2020.
[51] D. Kahneman, D. Lovallo, O. Sibony, Before You Make that Big Decision, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 89, No. 6, 2011, pp. 50-60.
[52] L. Cordonier, A. Brest, How do the French Inform Themselves on the Internet? Analysis of Online Information and Disinformation Behaviors (Doctoral Dissertation, Fondation Descartes), 2021.
[53] L. Lutzke, C. Drummond, P. Slovic, J. Árvai, Priming Critical Thinking: Simple Interventions Limit the Influence of Fake News about Climate Change on Facebook, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 58, 2019.
[2] J. Kirchner, C. Reuter, Countering Fake News: A Comparison of Possible Solutions Regarding
User Acceptance and Effectiveness, Proceedings of the ACM on Human Computer Interaction, Vol. 4 (CSCW2), 2020, pp. 1-27.
[3] X. Chen, S. C. J. Sin, Y. L. Theng, C. S. Lee, Why Students Share Misinformation on Social Media: Motivation, Gender, and Study-Level Differences, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 41, No. 5, 2015, pp. 583-592.
[4] R. S. Nickerson, Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises, Review of General Psychology, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1998, pp. 175-220.
[5] L. Hasher, D. Goldstein, T. Toppino, Frequency and The Conference of Referential Validity, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1977, pp. 107-112.
[6] S. Flaxman, S. Goel, J. M. Rao, Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. S1, 2016, pp. 298-320.
[7] R. B. Cialdini, The Science of Persuasion, Scientific American, Vol. 284, No. 2, 2001, pp. 76-81.
[8] A. Orhan, Fake News Detection on Social Media: the Predictive Role of University Students’ Critical Thinking Dispositions and New Media Literacy, Smart Learning Environments, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2023, pp. 29.
[9] S. Vosoughi, D. Roy, S. Aral, The Spread of True and Talse News Online. Science, Vol. 359, No. 6380, 2018, pp. 1146-1151.
[10] V. L. Rubin, Y. Chen, N. K. Conroy, Deception Detection for News: Three Types of Fakes. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 52, No. 1, 2015, pp. 1-4.
[11] L. E. Boehm, The Validity Effect: A Search for Mediating Variables. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1994, pp. 285-293.
[12] R. J. Fisher, Social Desirability Bias and the Validity of Indirect Questioning, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1993, pp. 303-315.
[13] H. Leibenstein, Bandwagon, Snob, and Veblen Effects in the Theory of Consumers' Demand, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 64, No. 2, 1950, pp. 183-207.
[14] J. Berger, K. L. Milkman, What Makes Online Content Viral?, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 49, No. 2, 2012, pp. 192-205.
[15] S. Lewandowsky, U. K. Ecker, C. M. Seifert, N. Schwarz, J. Cook, J. Misinformation and its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2012, pp. 106-131.
[16] J. Mengis, M. J. Eppler, Wissensdialoge: Dimensionen, Prinzipien und Probleme der Gesprächsbasierten Wissenskommunikation, In Wissenskommunikation in Organisationen: Methoden· Instrumente· Theorien, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2004, pp. 88-107.
[17] K. M. Fikkers, J. T. Piotrowski, Content and Person Effects in Media Research: Studying Differences in Cognitive, Emotional, and Arousal Responses to Media Content, Media Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2020, pp. 493-520.
[18] H. Allcott, M. Gentzkow, Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2017, pp. 211-236.
[19] D. M. Lazer, M. A. Baum, Y. Benkler, A. J. Berinsky, K. M. Greenhill, F. Menczer, J. L. Zittrain, The Science of Fake News, Science, Vol. 359, No. 6380, 2018, pp. 1094-1096.
[20] E. C. Tandoc Jr, Z. W. Lim, R. Ling, Defining “Fake News” a Typology of Scholarly Definitions, Digital Journalism, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2018, pp. 137-153.
[21] G. Di Domenico, J. Sit, A. Ishizaka, D. Nunan, Fake News, Social Media and Marketing: A Systematic Review, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 124, 2021, pp. 329-341.
[22] S. Chaiken, Heuristic and Systematic, Unintended Thought, 1989, pp. 212.
[23] R. E. Petty, J. T. Cacioppo, Message Elaboration Versus Peripheral Cues, In Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change, New York, NY: Springer New York, 1986, pp. 141-172.
[24] G. Pennycook, D. G. Rand, The Psychology of Fake News, Trends in Cognitive Sciences,
Vol. 25, No. 5, 2021, pp. 388-402.
[25] S. Wineburg, S. McGrew, Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning more When Evaluating Digital Information, 2017.
[26] G. Pennycook, D. G. Rand, Lazy, not Biased: Susceptibility to Partisan Fake News is Better Explained by Lack of Reasoning than by Motivated Reasoning, Cognition, Vol. 188, 2019, pp. 39-50.
[27] S. Greenfield, Mind Change: How Digital Technologies are Leaving their Mark on Our Brains, Random House, 2015.
[28] A. Gelfert, Fake News: A Definition, Informal Logic, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2018, pp. 84-117.
[29] E. C. Tandoc Jr, The Facts of Fake News: A Research Review, Sociology Compass, Vol. 13, No. 9, 2019, pp. e12724.
[30] C. Delmazo, J. C. Valente, Fake News Nas Redes Sociais Online: Propagação e Reações à Desinformação Em Busca de Cliques, Média & Jornalismo, Vol. 18, No. 32, 2018, pp. 155-169.
[31] S. Salgado, G. Bobba, News on Events and Social Media: A Comparative Analysis of Facebook Users’ Reactions, Journalism Studies, Vol. 20, No. 15, 2019, pp. 2258-2276.
[32] A. E. Galeotti, Believing Fake News, In Post-Truth, Philosophy and Law, Routledge, 2019,
pp. 58-76.
[33] G. Pennycook, T. D. Cannon, D. G. Rand, Prior Exposure Increases Perceived Accuracy of Fake News, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 147, No. 12, 2018, pp. 1865.
[34] S. Kai, L. Huan, Detecting Fake News on Social Media, In Synthesis Lectures on Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (No. 18; Series on Synthesis Lectures on Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, Issue 18). Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2019.
[35] C. Martel, G. Pennycook, D. G. Rand, Reliance on Emotion Promotes Belief in Fake News, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2020, pp. 47.
[36] N. Schwarz, L. J. Sanna, I. Skurnik, C. Yoon, Metacognitive Experiences and the Intricacies of Setting People Straight: Implications for Debiasing and Public Information Campaigns, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 39, 2007, pp. 127-161.
[37] R. H. Grady, P. H. Ditto, E. F. Loftus, Nevertheless, Partisanship Persisted: Fake News Warnings Help Briefly, but Bias Returns with Time, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2021, pp. 52.
[38] J. Roozenbeek, S. Van der Linden, Fake News Game Confers Psychological Resistance
Against Online Misinformation, Palgrave Communications, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2019, pp. 1-10.
[39] L. Nadarevic, R. Reber, A. J. Helmecke, D. Köse, Perceived Truth of Statements and Simulated Social Media Postings: An Experimental Investigation of Source Credibility, Repeated Exposure, and Presentation Format, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2020, pp. 1-16.
[40] G. Pennycook, D. G. Rand, Who Falls for Fake News? The Roles of Bullshit Receptivity, Overclaiming, Familiarity, and Analytic Thinking, Journal of Personality, Vol. 88, No. 2, 2020, pp. 185-200.
[41] P. Machete, M. Turpin, The Use of Critical Thinking to Identify Fake News: A Systematic Literature Review, In Conference on E-Business, E-Services and E-Society, Springer, Cham, 2020, pp. 235-246.
[42] C. Sindermann, H. S. Schmitt, D. Rozgonjuk, J. D. Elhai, C. Montag, The Evaluation of Fake and True News: on the Role of Intelligence, Personality, Interpersonal Trust, Ideological Attitudes, and News Consumption, Heliyon,
Vol. 7, No. 3, 2021.
[43] B. Bago, D. G. Rand, G. Pennycook, Fake News, Fast and Slow: Deliberation Reduces Belief in False (but not True) News Headlines, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 149,
No. 8, 2020, pp. 1608.
[44] D. Halpern, S. Valenzuela, J. Katz, J. P. Miranda, From Belief in Conspiracy Theories to Trust in Others: Which Factors Influence Exposure, Believing and Sharing Fake News, In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019, pp. 217-232.
[45] M. J. Metzger, A. J. Flanagin, Credibility and Trust of Information in Online Environments: The use of Cognitive Heuristics, Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 59, 2013, pp. 210-220.
[46] E. Katz, J. G. Blumler, M. Gurevitch, Uses and Gratifications Research, The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4, 1973, pp. 509-523.
[47] V. A. Nguyen, T. H. Le, Habits of Receiving and Sharing Unverified Information Among Social Media Users in Vietnam, Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 67, No. 3, 2021, pp. 45-58.
[48] R. Greifeneder, M. E. Jaffé, E. J. Newman, N. Schwarz, What is New and True 1 about Fake News?, In the Psychology of Fake News, Routledge, 2020, pp. 1-8.
[49] A. Bondielli, F. Marcelloni, A Survey on Fake News and Rumour Detection Techniques, Information Sciences, Vol. 497, 2019, pp. 38-55.
[50] L. Elder, R. Paul, Critical Thinking: Learn the Tools the Best Thinkers use, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2020.
[51] D. Kahneman, D. Lovallo, O. Sibony, Before You Make that Big Decision, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 89, No. 6, 2011, pp. 50-60.
[52] L. Cordonier, A. Brest, How do the French Inform Themselves on the Internet? Analysis of Online Information and Disinformation Behaviors (Doctoral Dissertation, Fondation Descartes), 2021.
[53] L. Lutzke, C. Drummond, P. Slovic, J. Árvai, Priming Critical Thinking: Simple Interventions Limit the Influence of Fake News about Climate Change on Facebook, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 58, 2019.
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