The effects of thinking styles and news domain on fake news recognition by social media users: evidence from russia

Abstract

The development and deployment of new technologies have influenced the media environment by enabling quick and effective dissemination of false news via social networks. Several experimental studies have highlighted the role of thinking style, social influence, source credibility and other factors when it comes to fake news recognition. Our study makes several contributions to existing knowledge. Web introduce a measure of conspiracy thinking, a comparison between politics and business news recognition, and we investigate the effects of sensationalist headlines on users’ abilities to differentiate between false and true news. 228 university students (203 completed the entire survey) from three departments (Humanities, Management, and Economics) took part in an online experiment. The results of a regression analysis demonstrate that double-checking of news online has a significant effect on individuals’ overall ability of differentiating between true and false news. Thinking styles, prior experience, and such control variables as age and gender have no significant effect on the overall level of accuracy. We also discuss the effects of different factors responsible for the accuracy of fake news recognition in business and political news, as well as several limitations of the study.