Diffusion of disinformation: How social media users respond to fake news and why

Edson C. Tandoc, Darren Lim, Rich Ling

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

227 Scopus citations

Abstract

This exploratory study seeks to understand the diffusion of disinformation by examining how social media users respond to fake news and why. Using a mixed-methods approach in an explanatory-sequential design, this study combines results from a national survey involving 2501 respondents with a series of in-depth interviews with 20 participants from the small but economically and technologically advanced nation of Singapore. This study finds that most social media users in Singapore just ignore the fake news posts they come across on social media. They would only offer corrections when the issue is strongly relevant to them and to people with whom they share a strong and close interpersonal relationship.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)381-398
Number of pages18
JournalJournalism
Volume21
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.

Keywords

  • Corrections
  • Singapore
  • disinformation
  • fact-checking
  • fake news

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