Evaluating the fake news problem at the scale of the information ecosystem
Evaluating the fake news problem at the scale of the information ecosystem
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DOI：
10.1126/sciadv.aay3539
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发表时间：
2020-04-01
期刊：
影响因子：
13.6
通讯作者：
Watts, Duncan J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Allen, Jennifer;Howland, Baird;Watts, Duncan J.
“假新闻”被广泛定义为伪装成合法新闻的虚假或误导性信息，经常被断言在网上无处不在，对民主造成严重后果。我们使用一个独特的多模式数据集，其中包括一个具有全国代表性的移动、桌面和电视消费样本，从三个层面驳斥了这一传统观点。首先，任何形式的新闻消费都远远超过了其他形式的媒体消费，最多占美国人日常媒体消费的14.2%。其次，就美国人消费新闻的程度而言，绝大多数来自电视，电视新闻的消费大约是在线新闻消费的五倍。第三，假新闻只占美国人日常媒体饮食的0.15%。我们的结果表明，公众错误信息和两极分化的根源更有可能在于普通新闻的内容或完全避免新闻，因为它们是公开的假新闻。
"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.