News Sharing, Persuasion, and Spread of Misinformation on Social Networks

News Sharing, Persuasion, and Spread of Misinformation on Social Networks PDF Author: Chin-Chia Hsu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this paper, we study a model of online news dissemination on a Twitter-like social network. Given a noisy observation of the state of the world henceforth called the news, agents with heterogeneous priors decide whether to share with their followers based on whether receiving the news can persuade their followers to move their beliefs closer to theirs in aggregate. We demonstrate how surprise and affirmation motives naturally emerge from the utility-maximizing behavior of agents. We fully characterize the dynamics of the news spread and uncover the mechanisms that lead to a sharing cascade. We further investigate the impact of the network structure, heterogeneity of priors, and precision levels of news on the ex-ante probability of the news going viral. In particular, we show that as individual perspectives become more diverse, a wider range of news precision levels cause a cascade. Finally, we elucidate an association between the news precision levels that maximize the probability of a cascade and the prior wisdom of the crowd. Our results complement the empirical findings that support wider spread of inaccurate/false news compared to accurate information on social networks, providing a theoretical micro-foundation for utility-based news-sharing decisions.

News Sharing, Persuasion, and Spread of Misinformation on Social Networks

News Sharing, Persuasion, and Spread of Misinformation on Social Networks PDF Author: Chin-Chia Hsu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this paper, we study a model of online news dissemination on a Twitter-like social network. Given a noisy observation of the state of the world henceforth called the news, agents with heterogeneous priors decide whether to share with their followers based on whether receiving the news can persuade their followers to move their beliefs closer to theirs in aggregate. We demonstrate how surprise and affirmation motives naturally emerge from the utility-maximizing behavior of agents. We fully characterize the dynamics of the news spread and uncover the mechanisms that lead to a sharing cascade. We further investigate the impact of the network structure, heterogeneity of priors, and precision levels of news on the ex-ante probability of the news going viral. In particular, we show that as individual perspectives become more diverse, a wider range of news precision levels cause a cascade. Finally, we elucidate an association between the news precision levels that maximize the probability of a cascade and the prior wisdom of the crowd. Our results complement the empirical findings that support wider spread of inaccurate/false news compared to accurate information on social networks, providing a theoretical micro-foundation for utility-based news-sharing decisions.

The Psychology of Fake News

The Psychology of Fake News PDF Author: Rainer Greifeneder
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000179052
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume examines the phenomenon of fake news by bringing together leading experts from different fields within psychology and related areas, and explores what has become a prominent feature of public discourse since the first Brexit referendum and the 2016 US election campaign. Dealing with misinformation is important in many areas of daily life, including politics, the marketplace, health communication, journalism, education, and science. In a general climate where facts and misinformation blur, and are intentionally blurred, this book asks what determines whether people accept and share (mis)information, and what can be done to counter misinformation? All three of these aspects need to be understood in the context of online social networks, which have fundamentally changed the way information is produced, consumed, and transmitted. The contributions within this volume summarize the most up-to-date empirical findings, theories, and applications and discuss cutting-edge ideas and future directions of interventions to counter fake news. Also providing guidance on how to handle misinformation in an age of “alternative facts”, this is a fascinating and vital reading for students and academics in psychology, communication, and political science and for professionals including policy makers and journalists.

Misinformation, Persuasion, and News Media on Social Networks

Misinformation, Persuasion, and News Media on Social Networks PDF Author: Chin-Chia Hsu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Social media platforms have become a popular source of news and information for a large segment of society. Users can receive information, share digital content, or attend to online publishers for the latest news. However, the recent proliferation of misinformation has affected people's perception of the veracity of online information and, in turn, their social behavior. In this environment of real and false information, this dissertation studies two aspects of user behavior through the lens of persuasion: (1) sharing online news, and (2) consumer choice of news media. The first part focuses on the dissemination of online news on social media platforms such as Twitter. I propose two frameworks: in the first I focus on non-strategic agents and in the second one I proceed with a game-theoretic setting. In the first model, agents choose to share news based on whether it can move their followers' beliefs closer to their own in the aggregate, and the current size of news spread, without considering news spreading in the future. I describe the dynamics of news spread arising from individual decisions and uncover the mechanisms that lead to a sharing cascade. I elucidate an association between the news precision levels that maximize the probability of a cascade and the wisdom of the crowd. The second model concerns a binary vote and rational agents who share news to make their followers cast the same vote as they do while strategically speculating on others' sharing decisions and news spread at the steady state. I characterize the underlying news spread as an endogenous Susceptible-Infected (SI) epidemic process and derive agents' sharing decisions and the size of the sharing cascade at the equilibrium of the game. I show that lower credibility news can result in a larger cascade than fully credible news provided that the network connectivity surpasses a connectivity limit. I further delineate the relationship between cascade size, network connectivity, and news credibility in terms of polarization and diversity in prior beliefs. The second part of this dissertation investigates how subscribers with diverse prior beliefs choose between two ideologically opposing news media (intermediaries) that are motivated to influence the public opinion, through their roles of news verification and selective disclosure. The news media may access some news about the state of the world, which may or may not be informative and they can choose whether to verify it. The news media then decide whether to disclose the news, aiming to persuade their subscribers to take the optimal action about the state based on their own beliefs. I show that centrists choose to subscribe to the intermediary with the opposing view, thereby exhibiting anti-homophily. By contrast, extremists exhibit homophily and prefer the intermediary with ideology that aligns with theirs. This dissertation contributes to the growing literature on people's behavior of news consumption by offering game-theoretic frameworks built on a persuasion motive.

Social Media and Democracy

Social Media and Democracy PDF Author: Nathaniel Persily
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835554
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 365

Get Book Here

Book Description
A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.

Journalism, fake news & disinformation

Journalism, fake news & disinformation PDF Author: Ireton, Cherilyn
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
ISBN: 9231002813
Category : Fake news
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Get Book Here

Book Description


Research Anthology on Fake News, Political Warfare, and Combatting the Spread of Misinformation

Research Anthology on Fake News, Political Warfare, and Combatting the Spread of Misinformation PDF Author: Management Association, Information Resources
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799872920
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 653

Get Book Here

Book Description
With recent headlines around fake news from world leaders and around presidential elections, Twitter and other social media platforms being pressured to detect and label misinformation posted on their platforms, as well as misinformation around COVID-19 and its vaccine, the world has seen an increase in protests, policy changes, and even chaos surrounding this information. This spread of misinformation, when left unchecked, can turn fiction into fact and result in a mass misconception of the truth that shapes opinions, creates false narratives, and impacts multiple facets of society in potentially detrimental ways, indicating a need for the latest research on how the devastating impacts of this trend, how to discern facts from misinformation, as well as more information on technological advancements in fake news detection The Research Anthology on Fake News, Political Warfare, and Combatting the Spread of Misinformation is a compilation of the most comprehensive, previously published, and highly cited research from prestigious institutions including Columbia University and Stanford University, USA, which focuses on understanding fake news, how it spreads, its negative effects, and current solutions being investigated. While highlighting topics such as fake news, trending conspiracy theories, media distrust, political warfare, and detection methods, this book is ideally intended for practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the continuing surge of fake news and its, at times, dangerous results.

Network Propaganda

Network Propaganda PDF Author: Yochai Benkler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190923644
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics.

Social Computing and Social Media. Design, Ethics, User Behavior, and Social Network Analysis

Social Computing and Social Media. Design, Ethics, User Behavior, and Social Network Analysis PDF Author: Gabriele Meiselwitz
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030495701
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 703

Get Book Here

Book Description
This two-volume set LNCS 12194 and 12195 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Social Computing and Social Media, SCSM 2020, held as part of the 22nd International Conference, HCI International 2020, which was planned to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2020. The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The total of 1439 papers and 238 posters have been accepted for publication in the HCII 2020 proceedings from a total of 6326 submissions. SCSM 2020 includes a total of 93 papers which are organized in topical sections named: Design Issues in Social Computing, Ethics and Misinformation in Social Media, User Behavior and Social Network Analysis, Participation and Collaboration in Online Communities, Social Computing and User Experience, Social Media Marketing and Consumer Experience, Social Computing for Well-Being, Learning, and Entertainment.

Fake News

Fake News PDF Author: Melissa Zimdars
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262538369
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Get Book Here

Book Description
New perspectives on the misinformation ecosystem that is the production and circulation of fake news. What is fake news? Is it an item on Breitbart, an article in The Onion, an outright falsehood disseminated via Russian bot, or a catchphrase used by a politician to discredit a story he doesn't like? This book examines the real fake news: the constant flow of purposefully crafted, sensational, emotionally charged, misleading or totally fabricated information that mimics the form of mainstream news. Rather than viewing fake news through a single lens, the book maps the various kinds of misinformation through several different disciplinary perspectives, taking into account the overlapping contexts of politics, technology, and journalism. The contributors consider topics including fake news as “disorganized” propaganda; folkloric falsehood in the “Pizzagate” conspiracy; native advertising as counterfeit news; the limitations of regulatory reform and technological solutionism; Reddit's enabling of fake news; the psychological mechanisms by which people make sense of information; and the evolution of fake news in America. A section on media hoaxes and satire features an oral history of and an interview with prankster-activists the Yes Men, famous for parodies that reveal hidden truths. Finally, contributors consider possible solutions to the complex problem of fake news—ways to mitigate its spread, to teach students to find factually accurate information, and to go beyond fact-checking. Contributors Mark Andrejevic, Benjamin Burroughs, Nicholas Bowman, Mark Brewin, Elizabeth Cohen, Colin Doty, Dan Faltesek, Johan Farkas, Cherian George, Tarleton Gillespie, Dawn R. Gilpin, Gina Giotta, Theodore Glasser, Amanda Ann Klein, Paul Levinson, Adrienne Massanari, Sophia A. McClennen, Kembrew McLeod, Panagiotis Takis Metaxas, Paul Mihailidis, Benjamin Peters, Whitney Phillips, Victor Pickard, Danielle Polage, Stephanie Ricker Schulte, Leslie-Jean Thornton, Anita Varma, Claire Wardle, Melissa Zimdars, Sheng Zou

Democracy in the Disinformation Age

Democracy in the Disinformation Age PDF Author: Regina Luttrell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000390780
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this book established researchers draw on a range of theoretical and empirical perspectives to examine social media’s impact on American politics. Chapters critically examine activism in the digital age, fake news, online influence, messaging tactics, news transparency and authentication, consumers’ digital habits and ultimately the societal impacts that continue to be created by combining social media and politics. Through this book readers will better understand and approach with questions such as: • How exactly and why did social media become a powerful factor in politics? • What responsibilities do social networks have in the proliferation of factually wrong and hate-filled messages? Or should individuals be held accountable? • What are the state-of-the-art of computational techniques for measuring and determining social media's impact on society? • What role does online activism play in today’s political arena? • What does the potent combination of social media and politics truly mean for the future of democracy? The insights and debates found herein provide a stronger understanding of the core issues and steer us toward improved curriculum and research aimed at a better democracy. Democracy in the Disinformation Age: Influence and Activism in American Politics will appeal to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics with an interest in areas including political science, media studies, mass communication, PR, and journalism.