Evaluating the fake news problem at the scale of the information ecosystem

Science Advances vol 6, issue 14; https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay3539

Autor:

1. Jennifer Allen; MIT Sloan School of Management, 100 Main St., Cambridge, Massachusetts 021, USA; jnallen@mit.edu; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9827-9147
2. Baird Howland; Harmony Labs, New York, USA. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2190-8101
3. Markus Mobius; Microsoft Research New England, 1 Memorial Dr., Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; mobius@fas.harvard.edu; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4725-7896
4. David Rothschild; Microsoft Research New York, 641 Avenue of the Americas, 7th Floor, New York, USA; david@researchdmr.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7792-1989
5. Duncan J. Watts; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; djw24@columbia.edu; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5005-4961

Abstract: “Fake news,” broadly defined as false or misleading information masquerading as legitimate news, is frequently asserted to be pervasive online with serious consequences for democracy. Using a unique multimode dataset that comprises a nationally representative sample of mobile, desktop, and television consumption, we refute this conventional wisdom on three levels. First, news consumption of any sort is heavily outweighed by other forms of media consumption, comprising at most 14.2% of Americans’ daily media diets. Second, to the extent that Americans do consume news, it is overwhelmingly from television, which accounts for roughly five times as much as news consumption as online. Third, fake news comprises only 0.15% of Americans’ daily media diet. Our results suggest that the origins of public misinformedness and polarization are more likely to lie in the content of ordinary news or the avoidance of news altogether as they are in overt fakery.

Idioma: Inglés

Publicación: 03 de abril del 2020

Volumen: Science Advances, vol 6 issue 14. 

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