Why do people share political information and misinformation online? Developing a bottom-up descriptive framework
Article
Perach, R., Joyner, L., Husbands, D. and Buchanan, T. 2023. Why do people share political information and misinformation online? Developing a bottom-up descriptive framework. Social Media + Society. 9 (3), pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231192032
Type | Article |
---|---|
Title | Why do people share political information and misinformation online? Developing a bottom-up descriptive framework |
Authors | Perach, R., Joyner, L., Husbands, D. and Buchanan, T. |
Abstract | Social media users are key actors in the spreading of misleading or incorrect information. To develop an integrative parsimonious summary of social media users’ own accounts of motives for sharing political information, we conducted: 1. a literature review of motives for personally sharing false information as reported by social media users; and 2. qualitative research concerning these motives using an innovative, ecologically valid method. Based on our findings, we developed a pool of items evaluating social media users’ motives for sharing false political information, which we then tested and analysed the dimensionality of in 3. a preregistered questionnaire-based study in order to identify key clusters of users’ own accounts of motives for sharing both true and false political information. The current findings show that there are distinct sets of motives people report for their misinformation sharing behaviour: prosocial activism, attack or manipulation of others, entertainment, awareness, political self-expression, and fighting false information. Also, these sets of motives are associated with variables known to predict sharing misinformation, and some of these sets predict social media users’ self-reports of having shared misinformation in the past. Our findings highlight and elaborate on users’ motives that reflect a concern with 'making things better' and acting in a manner that is beneficial to society as a whole, and suggest that different interventions may be required to combat misinformation sharing driven by different motives. A potential set of 18 items that could be used in questionnaires measuring motivations for sharing political news online is described. |
Keywords | misinformation; social media; motives ; mixed-methods; political; review |
Sustainable Development Goals | 16 Peace, justice and strong institutions |
Middlesex University Theme | Health & Wellbeing |
Publisher | SAGE Publications |
Journal | Social Media + Society |
ISSN | |
Electronic | 2056-3051 |
Publication dates | |
Online | 18 Aug 2023 |
Jul 2023 | |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 13 Jul 2023 |
Deposited | 11 Jun 2024 |
Output status | Published |
Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
Copyright Statement | © The Author(s) 2023 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231192032 |
Web of Science identifier | WOS:001050627200001 |
Related Output | |
Is supplemented by | https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051231192032#supplementary-materials |
Language | English |
https://repository.mdx.ac.uk/item/v71z1
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Publisher's version
perach-et-al-2023-why-do-people-share-political-information-and-misinformation-online.pdf | ||
License: CC BY 4.0 | ||
File access level: Open |
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