Why Do People Share Fake News? A Sociotechnical Model of Media Effects

When it comes to misinformation, fact-checking is not just ineffective - it's an accelerant

Verrit, like Snopes, Politifact, and a host of other fact-checking sites, reflect fundamental misunderstandings about how information circulates online, what function political information plays in social contexts, and how and why people change their political opinions. Fact-checking is in many ways a response to the rapidly changing norms and practices of journalism, news gathering, and public debate. In other words, fact-checking best resembles a movement for reform within journalism, particularly in a moment when many journalists and members of the public believe that news coverage of the 2016 election contributed to the loss of Hillary Clinton. However, fact-checking (and another frequently-proposed solution, media literacy) is ineffectual in many cases and, in other cases, may cause people to “double-down” on their incorrect beliefs, producing a backlash effect. This paper uses active audience approaches to media consumption to investigate and critique the phenomenon known as “fake news.”

Google helps to reaffirm people’s existing beliefs

Searching for Alternative Facts is an ethnographic account drawn directly from Dr. Francesca Tripodi’s research within upper-middle class conservative Christian communities in Virginia in 2017. Dr. Tripodi uses Christian practices of Biblical interpretation as a lens for understanding the relationship between so-called “alternative” or “fake news” sources and contemporary conservative political thought.

Self-identified conservatives in this study consume a wide variety of news sources–but then juxtapose what they read, see, and hear with other documents, including presidential speeches and the Constitution. Tripodi calls this compare-and-contrasting focus on “the Word” scriptural inference; a practice rooted in Biblical study that prioritizes direct analysis of primary sources. Since these communities rely on non-neutral search engines like Google to “fact check” the news, algorithms that are used to serve up information may help create or reinforce ideological biases in newsgathering.

Services like Google and YouTube can unintentionally expose individuals who consider themselves “mainline conservatives” to more radical content, as the author finds that “simple syntax differences” in search terms yield different algorithmic recommendations. Nonprofit media company PragerU, for example, is identified as a purveyor of bite-size content formats and sophisticated marketing strategies that aim to reinforce distrust of mainstream media.

Online communities are increasingly turning to conspiracy-driven news sources

A few key findings from the report include:

  • Internet subcultures take advantage of the current media ecosystem to manipulate news frames, set agendas, and propagate ideas.
  • Far-right groups have developed techniques of “attention hacking” to increase the visibility of their ideas through the strategic use of social media, memes, and bots—as well as by targeting journalists, bloggers, and influencers to help spread content.
  • The media’s dependence on social media, analytics and metrics, sensationalism, novelty over newsworthiness, and clickbait makes them vulnerable to such media manipulation.
  • While trolls, white nationalists, men’s rights activists, gamergaters, the “altright,” and conspiracy theorists may diverge deeply in their beliefs, they share tactics and converge on common issues.
  • The far-right exploits young men’s rebellion and dislike of “political correctness” to spread white supremacist thought, Islamophobia, and misogyny through irony and knowledge of internet culture.
  • Media manipulation may contribute to decreased trust of mainstream media, increased misinformation, and further radicalization