What the Experts Say II

Who Is Prone to Fake News?

This year Science Advances published a study about fake news in the US presidential elections 2016. The authors collected data about Facebook users of different age groups and ideologies and looked for patterns regarding fake news on their Facebook profiles. As a result, it has been concluded that age seems to play a more important role than ideology in determining who will be more likely affected by disinformation (Guess, Nagler & Tucker, 2019) .

Regarding numerical findings of the study, citizens aged over 65 were observed to have shared almost seven times as many fake news articles as those in the youngest group, which consisted of people having between 18 and 29 years. Guess et al. also assert that the relationship remained even after factors like, education, party affiliation, ideological self-placement, and overall posting activity, were held equal.

Another observation, although not as robust as the age factor, was connected with ideology. The number of fake stories shared was reported to have had a significantly higher representation within the conservative ideology. This trend was especially strong among those users who identified themselves as "very conservative".

The final discussions of the study concluded that younger people seem to be more media literate than seniors; in other words, younger people have a higher ability of distinguishing between real and fake news. Guess et al. however emphasized that it is usually the young people who are paid more attention to regarding media literacy education, while the findings suggest that it should be the seniors who should be given more focus in this area. 

Finally, although the study's vocal point was the impact of fake news on the US society in particular, some of the findings resemble the situation in Slovakia, especially the fact that fake news were more strongly correlated with conservative ideologies, since this supports the observation (mentioned in the entry "Current Events II") that Slovak conservative presidential candidate Štefan Harabin was the one with the highest support of disinformation channels. 

Link
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586/tab-pdf

Reference
Guess, A., Nagler, J., & Tucker, J. (2019). Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fakw news dissemination on Facebook. Science advances, 5(1), eaau4586. DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aau4586 

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