Abstract
Proliferation of misinformation in digital news environments can harm society in a number of ways, but its dangers are most acute when citizens believe that false news is factually accurate. A recent wave of empirical research focuses on factors that explain why people fall for the so-called fake news. In this scoping review, we summarize the results of experimental studies that test different predictors of individuals' belief in misinformation. The review is based on a synthetic analysis of 26 scholarly articles. The authors developed and applied a search protocol to two academic databases, Scopus and Web of Science. The sample included experimental studies that test factors influencing users' ability to recognize fake news, their likelihood to trust it or intention to engage with such content. Relying on scoping review methodology, the authors then collated and summarized the available evidence. The study identifies three broad groups of factors contributing to individuals' belief in fake news. Firstly, message characteristics-such as belief consistency and presentation cues-can drive people's belief in misinformation. Secondly, susceptibility to fake news can be determined by individual factors including people's cognitive styles, predispositions, and differences in news and information literacy. Finally, accuracy-promoting interventions such as warnings or nudges priming individuals to think about information veracity can impact judgements about fake news credibility. Evidence suggests that inoculation-type interventions can be both scalable and effective. We note that study results could be partly driven by design choices such as selection of stimuli and outcome measurement. We call for expanding the scope and diversifying designs of empirical investigations of people's susceptibility to false information online. We recommend examining digital platforms beyond Facebook, using more diverse formats of stimulus material and adding a comparative angle to fake news research.
Highlights
Deception is not a new phenomenon in mass communication: people had been exposed to political propaganda, strategic misinformation, and rumors long before much of public communication migrated to digital spaces [1]
We call for expanding the scope and diversifying designs of empirical investigations of people’s susceptibility to false information online
In the information ecosystem centered around social media, digital deception took on renewed urgency, with the 2016 U.S presidential election marking the tipping point where the gravity of the issue became a widespread concern [2, 3]
Summary
Deception is not a new phenomenon in mass communication: people had been exposed to political propaganda, strategic misinformation, and rumors long before much of public communication migrated to digital spaces [1]. The spread of politically charged digital deception in the buildup to and following the 2016 election became a mass phenomenon: for example, Allcott and Gentzkow [1] estimated that the average US adult could have read and remembered at least one fake news article in the months around the election (but see Allen et al [8] for an opposing claim regarding the scale of the fake news issue) Reflections upon this new reality sparked a wave of research concerned with a specific brand of false information, labelled fake news and most commonly conceptualized as non-factual messages resembling legitimate news content and created with an intention to deceive [3, 9]. We summarize the results of experimental studies that test different predictors of individuals’ belief in misinformation
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