Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook

Year of production: 2019

Image is illustrative. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

The research article explores the so-called “ fake news” phenomenon and the growing concerns about the prevalence and effects of misinformation in political campaigns. The authors particularly examine the characteristics associated with sharing false articles during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, via the Facebook social media platform. Some of the main findings indicate that distribution of such news is corelated to the age of the users “on average, users over 65 shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age group.”.

Authors

Photo of Andrew Guess
Andrew Guess

A. Guess is an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. His research sits at the intersection of political communication, public opinion, and political behavior.

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Jonathan Nagler

J. Nagler is a Professor of Politics, as well as a co-director of the NYU Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) Lab. He is working on projects on the impact of economics on elections, and on the impact of social media on political participation.

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Joshua Tucker

J. Tucker is a Professor of Politics, an affiliated Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, and an affiliated Professor of Data Science at New York University. He studied comparative politics with an emphasis on mass politics, including elections and voting, the development of partisan attachment, public opinion formation, and political protest, as well as how social media usage affects all of these types of political behavior.