Social media fact-checking: the effects of news literacy and news trust on the intent to verify health-related information

Ines Kožuh (Author), Peter Čakš (Author)

Abstract

The recent health crisis and the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence have caused misinformation on social media to flourish by becoming more sophisticated and challenging to detect. This calls upon fact-checking and questions users’ competencies and attitudes when assessing social media news. Our study provides a model of how fact-checking intent is explained by news literacy and news trust to examine how users behave in the misinformation-prone social media environment. Structural equation modeling was used to examine survey data gathered from social media users. The findings revealed that users’ intent to fact-check information in social media news is explained by (1) news literacy, such as the awareness of various techniques used by creators to depict situations about COVID-19; (2) news trust, in terms of the conviction that the news contains all the essential facts; and (3) intent, such as an aim to check information in multiple pieces of news. The presented findings may aid policymakers and practitioners in developing efficient communication strategies for addressing users less prone to fact-checking. Our contribution offers a new understanding of news literacy as a sufficient tool for combating misinformation, which actively equips users with knowledge and an attitude for social media news fact-checking.

Keywords

zaupanje;socialni mediji;pandemija;fact-checking;news literacy;trust;social media;misinformaiton;fake news;pandemic;health crisis;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2023
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	UM FERI - Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Publisher:	MDPI
UDC:	659.3
COBISS:	169419267
ISSN:	2227-9032
Views:	28
Downloads:	1
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	Slovenian
Secondary keywords:	zaupanje;socialni mediji;pandemija;
Type (COBISS):	Article
Pages:	18 str.
Volume:	ǂ[Vol.] ǂ11
Issue:	ǂ[iss.] ǂ20
Chronology:	2023
DOI:	10.3390/healthcare11202796
ID:	24009462