False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not that much at the individual level; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories

Gruener, Sven. 2019. “Evidence on Internet-based False News Stories and Attitudes Towards Redesigning the Information Ecosystem.” SocArXiv. January 26. doi:10.31235/osf.io/xbez

Abstract: The Internet significantly reduced the marginal costs of generating and disseminating information. With false news stories in mind, some scholars call for a redesign of our information ecosystem. This is important because functioning democracy requires well-informed individuals. The paper addresses the problem awareness of university students about false news stories with the help of a questionnaire. Our study is exploratory. Thus, we seek for interesting correlations and generate hypotheses that can be analyzed in further studies with new data. They read as follows: (i) Facebook users are more likely to be suspicious of false news stories if they are interested in political topics. People are less likely to detect false news stories the stronger they trust in others and the more emphasis they put on the opinions of others. (ii) False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not that much at the individual level. (iii) Men more often than women believe to be in touch with false news stories; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories. People who fear false news stories are likely to believe that they could detect such news better than the average. (iv) People see operators of platforms to be responsible against false news stories; people seem to trust less in government.