While fact-checking has received much attention as a potential tool to combat fake news, whether and how fact-checking information lessens intentions to share fake news on social media remains underexplored. Two experiments uncovered a theoretical mechanism underlying the effect of fact-checking on sharing intentions, and identified an important contextual cue (i.e., social media metrics) that interacts with fact-checking effects. Exposure to fake news with fact-checking information (vs. fake news without fact-checking information) yielded more negative evaluations of the news and a greater belief that others are more influenced by the news than oneself (third-person perception [TPP]). Increased TPP, in turn, led to weaker intentions to share fake news on social media. Fact-checking information also nullified the effect of social media metrics on sharing intentions; without fact-checking information, higher (vs. lower) social media metrics induced greater intentions to share the news. However, when fact-checking debunked the news, such an effect disappeared.

We present two studies evaluating the effectiveness of flagging inaccurate political posts on social media. In Study 1, we tested fact-checker flags, peer-generated flags, and a flag indicating that the publisher self-identified as a source of humor. We predicted that all would be effective, that their effectiveness would depend on prior beliefs, and that the self-identified humor flag would work best. Conducting a 2-wave online experiment (N = 218), we found that self-identified humor flags were most effective, reducing beliefs and sharing intentions, especially among those predisposed to believe the post. We found no evidence that warnings from fact checkers or peers were beneficial. Compared to the alternatives, participants exposed to self-identified humor flags exhibited less reactance to and had more positive appraisals of the flagging system. The second study (N = 610) replicated the findings of the first and provides a preliminary test of what makes this flag work.

This article explores the phenomenon of spectacle in the lead up and immediate aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Through the spread of misinformation, the appropriation of cultural iconography, and the willing engagement of mainstream media to perpetuate partisan and polarizing information, the proliferation of populist rhetoric, polarizing views, and vitriolic opinions spread. Revisiting the world of critical theorist Guy Debord, this article argues that the proliferation of citizen-drive spectacle is unique in its origination and perpetuation, and a direct result of an increasingly polarized and distrustful public spending an increasing amount of time in homophilous networks where contrarian views are few and far between. We apply the frame of spreadable media to explore how citizen expression online initiated, sustained, and expanded the media spectacle that pervaded the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The conclusion of this work argues that media literacies, as a popular response mechanism to help cultivate more critical consumers of media, must be repositioned to respond to an era of partisanship and distrust. We present a set of considerations for repositioning the literacies to focus on critique and creation of media in support of a common good, and that can respond meaningfully in an era of spreadability, connectivity, and spectacle.

Why do people believe blatantly inaccurate news headlines ("fake news")? Do we use our reasoning abilities to convince ourselves that statements that align with our ideology are true, or does reasoning allow us to effectively differentiate fake from real regardless of political ideology? Here we test these competing accounts in two studies (total N = 3446 Mechanical Turk workers) by using the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) as a measure of the propensity to engage in analytical reasoning. We find that CRT performance is negatively correlated with the perceived accuracy of fake news, and positively correlated with the ability to discern fake news from real news - even for headlines that align with individuals' political ideology. Moreover, overall discernment was actually better for ideologically aligned headlines than for misaligned headlines. Finally, a headline-level analysis finds that CRT is negatively correlated with perceived accuracy of relatively implausible (primarily fake) headlines, and positively correlated with perceived accuracy of relatively plausible (primarily real) headlines. In contrast, the correlation between CRT and perceived accuracy is unrelated to how closely the headline aligns with the participant's ideology. Thus, we conclude that analytic thinking is used to assess the plausibility of headlines, regardless of whether the stories are consistent or inconsistent with one's political ideology. Our findings therefore suggest that susceptibility to fake news is driven more by lazy thinking than it is by partisan bias per se - a finding that opens potential avenues for fighting fake news.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Across two studies with more than 1,700 U.S. adults recruited online, we present evidence that people share false claims about COVID-19 partly because they simply fail to think sufficiently about whether or not the content is accurate when deciding what to share. In Study 1, participants were far worse at discerning between true and false content when deciding what they would share on social media relative to when they were asked directly about accuracy. Furthermore, greater cognitive reflection and science knowledge were associated with stronger discernment. In Study 2, we found that a simple accuracy reminder at the beginning of the study (i.e., judging the accuracy of a non-COVID-19-related headline) nearly tripled the level of truth discernment in participants' subsequent sharing intentions. Our results, which mirror those found previously for political fake news, suggest that nudging people to think about accuracy is a simple way to improve choices about what to share on social media.

This article explores implications of the transition to an environment in which users have become secondary gatekeepers of the content published on media websites. This expanded user role, facilitated by technology and enabled by digital news editors, includes assessment of contributions by other users; communication of the perceived value or quality of user- and journalist-produced content; and selective re-dissemination of that content. The result is a two-step gatekeeping process, in which initial editorial decisions to make an item part of the news product are followed by user decisions to upgrade or downgrade the visibility of that item for a secondary audience. Preliminary empirical evidence indicates these user gatekeeping capabilities are now pervasive on US newspaper sites.

How can we empower social media users to better discern the veracity of news and share less false news? This survey experiment (N = 636) assessed the effectiveness of two interventions—signing a Pro-Truth Pledge and utilizing a Fact-Checking Guide. Results showed that utilizing the Fact-Checking Guide increased skepticism of news posts, likelihood to verify news posts, verification engagement, and reduced intention to share news without regard to news veracity. Before and after comparisons indicated that after verification engagement activities, truth and sharing discernment improved with higher factual accuracy ratings for true news, lower accuracy ratings for false news, and a greater likelihood to share true news compared to false news. Individual’s engagement in verification was identified as a crucial mechanism through which the Fact-Checking Guide intervention led to better truth and sharing discernment. The study could inform social media designs that promote a truthful news environment.

As concerns grow about the spread of misinformation through social media, scholars have called for improving the public's media literacy as a potential solution. This study examines the effectiveness of deploying news literacy (NL) messages on social media by testing whether NL tweets are able to affect perceptions of information credibility and NL beliefs. Using two experiments, this study tests NL tweets designed to (a) mitigate the impact of exposure to misinformation about two health issues (genetically modified foods and the flu vaccine) and (b) boost people's perceptions of their own media literacy and media literacy's value to society broadly. Findings suggest that NL messages are able to alter misinformation perceptions and NL beliefs, but not with a single message, suggesting the need to develop tailored and targeted NL campaigns that feature multiple messages and calls to action.

A number of solutions have been proposed to address concerns about misinformation online, including encouraging experts to engage in corrections of misinformation being shared and improving media literacy among the American public. This study combines these approaches to examine whether news literacy (NL) messages on social media enhance the effectiveness of expert correction of misinformation on Twitter. Two experiments suggest that expert organizations can successfully correct misinformation on social media across two controversial issues with a single tweet. However, three different NL messages did not improve the effectiveness of expert corrections. We discuss the difficulties of crafting NL messages that break through the clutter on social media and suggest guidelines for organizations attempting to address misinformation online.

Extending previous research, we test two solutions for addressing misinformation by pairing news literacy (NL) messages with corrective responses to health misinformation shared on Twitter. Importantly, we consider a range of outcomes, including not just credibility or misperceptions, but also feelings of news literacy and support for its value. Using an experiment, we find that user corrections of a meme containing false information reduced credibility assessments of the misinformation post and misperceptions but seeing misinformation also produced lower perceptions of personal news literacy and its value for society, regardless of whether it is corrected or not. Exposure to an NL message did not enhance the effectiveness of these corrective responses nor boost NL attitudes and may have generated cynicism. We discuss the challenges of designing NL messages for social media that achieve the wide range of goals news literacy interventions aspire to address.

Despite its growing prominence in news coverage and public discourse, there is still considerable ambiguity regarding when and how fact-checking affects beliefs. Informed by theories of motivated reasoning and message design, a meta-analytic review was undertaken to examine the effectiveness of fact-checking in correcting political misinformation (k = 30,N = 20,963). Fact-checking has a significantly positive overall influence on political beliefs (d = 0.29), but the effects gradually weaken when using "truth scales," refuting only parts of a claim, and fact-checking campaign-related statements. Likewise, the ability to correct political misinformation with fact-checking is substantially attenuated by participants' preexisting beliefs, ideology, and knowledge. The study concludes with a discussion of the fact-checking literature in light of current gaps and future opportunities.