CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the related literature and studies after the thorough and in-depth

search done by the researchers. This will also present the synthesis of the art, conceptual

framework to fully understand the research to be done and lastly the definition of terms for better

comprehension of the study.

Not a new concept, "fake news" refers to intentionally and verifiably false stories that are

largely disseminated through social media networks. It can be very persuasive and therefore it is

necessary to develop strategies to identify and critically assess news you read on social media. A

recent (March 2018) article in Science evaluated the dissemination of "fake news" on Twitter

between 2006-2017 (Queens University Library, 2019). Fake news is not a new phenomenon.

Tabloid magazines have been around since the beginning of the 20th century and fake news, for

example, played a role in America becoming involved in World War I (Lippmann, 1946, c/o

Lazer et al., 2017). Nonetheless, fake news as it has been discussed recently (e.g., Allcott &

Gentzkow, 2017; Shane, 2017) seems a new category of misinformation. Although there are

many forms of “fake news”, here we follow Lazer et al. who define fake news as:

“… information that mimics the output of the news media in form, but not in

organizational process or intent—e.g., lacking editorial norms and processes to weed out

the untrue in favor of the true. Fake news is thus a subgenre of the broader category of

misinformation—of incorrect information about the state of the world.”

Given that the creators of fake news are not beholden to editorial norms, it is important to

understand the cognitive factors that allow readers to weed out the untrue in favor of the true. In
a classic study of wartime rumors, Allport and Lepkin (1945) found that individuals who had

previously heard of a rumor were far more likely to believe it. This finding coincides with

research on the illusory truth effect in which the repetition of, for example, obscure trivia

statements increases perceptions of accuracy (Dechene, Stahl, Hansen, & Wanke, 2010; Fazio,

Brashier, Payne, & Marsh, 2015; Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppino, 1977). Extending work on the

illusory truth to the domain of fake news, Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand (2018) found that

simply reading a fake news headline once is sufficient to increase later perceptions of its

accuracy. It is perhaps surprising that familiarity plays an important role in belief about fake

news, given that fake news content is often quite implausible. For example, the headline “Trump

to Ban All TV Shows that Promote Gay Activity Starting with Empire as President” was only

rated as accurate by 5% of Pennycook et al.’s (2017) sample upon first exposure. A single prior

exposure doubled the fraction of participants rating it as accurate - and these effects compounded

with a subsequent exposure and were still present in a follow-up session one week later.

Fake news has seriously caught on. It has greatly influenced the way media platforms

operate, the public’s perception of information, and even how governments confront its

proliferation. The internet radically changed the way news is published. The effects of fake news

can be very destructive — both on a social and economical way. If even just one person would

say one bad thing about a certain product, all he or she would need is another person to comment

or agree and this would make it sound true for most. According to Ces Drilon, in an American

Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) of the Philippines’ General Membership Luncheon Meeting

last July 25, 2018, one of the reasons why fake news can be very convincing is that massive

amounts of it could make it believable. The sheer volume of content about one specific rumor

makes it even more convincing to the public eye.

 In the research “Fake News Hits the Workplace,” shows that 59 percent of people are

concerned about the effect that fake news has in the workplace. Fake news can have a negative

impact on workplace behavior. For example, by damaging learning culture, and causing rumor

and mistrust to spread. So, it's vital to know how to separate the real from the fake. (Leadership

IQ, 2019). The same study suggests on how to identify fake news and these six steps are the

following: (a) develop critical mindset; (b) check the source; (c) see who else is reporting the

story; (d) examine the evidence; (e) look for fake images; and (f) check that it “sounds right.”

Fake news had always been around, but nowadays, the main differences lie in the way its

being spread and read. At present, information, whether true or false, travels faster. People could

easily access tons of news and information through different media platforms through the

internet. In addition to this, images are making it even more believable — the better the image,

the more convincing the story is. Perception can be constantly manipulated to make it better and

believable (Manalo, S., 2018).

Fake news is nothing new. But, what is new is how easy it's become to share information

– both true and false – on a massive scale. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and

LinkedIn allow almost anyone to publish their thoughts or share stories to the world. The trouble

is, most people don't check the source of the material that they view online before they share it,

which can lead to fake news spreading quickly or even "going viral." At the same time, it's

become harder to identify the source of news stories, particularly on the internet, which can

make it difficult to assess their accuracy. This has led to a flood of fake news. In fact, one study

found that more than 25 percent of Americans visited a fake news website in a six-week period

during the 2016 U.S. presidential election (Reifler, J., 2016) But, not all fake news stories are

found online (Murphy, M., 2017). Mokhtar Elareshi and Barrie Gunter (2009), supported the
idea that not all fake news can be found online and that it can also be in other mode of news such

as print, TV and radio broadcasts.

The relationship between young adults and use of news media has been studied for many

years (Sherr 2005). It has been observed that young people display a weak interest in

conventional forms of news and have been less likely than older people to engage with

traditional news sources (Sherr 2005, Kaufhold 2008). In general, young adults were found to

rely primarily on TV as their main source of news (Walma vander Molen, J.H., van der Voort

2000). Even with television, however, older viewers were more likely than young adult viewers

to use television news. Nevertheless, interest in news was observed to increase across university

years among students (O’Keefe, Spetnagel 1973).

If the children are the future, the future might be very ill-informed. That's one implication

of a new study from Stanford researchers that evaluated students' ability to assess information

sources and described the results as "dismaying," "bleak" and "[a] threat to democracy." The

students displayed a "stunning and dismaying consistency" in their responses, the researchers

wrote, getting duped again and again. They weren't looking for high-level analysis of data but

just a "reasonable bar" of, for instance, telling fake accounts from real ones, activist groups from

neutral sources and ads from articles (Wineburg, S., McGrew, S., Breakstone, J., and Ortega, T.,

2016). Young adults are likely to be chosen to this study because during their late teens and early

20s, young people begin to establish a bigger appetite for news. It is during this period of their

development also when they become more actively politically engaged and turn to news media in

this context (Henke 1985, Karam 2007a, Vincent, Basil 1997). Young people nevertheless may

display distinct preferences in the news topics that appeal to them and in the news sources they
consume to use different news sources for news reason (Pew Research Centre for the People &

the Press 2002, Pew Internet & American Life Project 2010).

“How does new technology disrupt how information is spread? Simply put, each

communication method has its associated societal norms and customs—i.e, the way things are

“supposed to be done”. However, new technology disrupts these norms, because none existed up

to that point. Until society agrees to the norms—whether through government regulation or

societal self-regulation—various parties will abuse it to serve their agendas. This results in false

information reaching the public—deliberately or by accident. Either way, it results in what we

know as fake news today. The internet is only the latest communications technology used to

spread propaganda. It allows a small number of individuals to influence and manipulate the

opinions of a larger audience. In addition, the targeting and crowd dynamics created by social

media allows for ideas—true or otherwise—to spread faster than ever before,” (Lion Gu, V., and

Fyodor Yarochkin, 2017).

For every challenge facing this nation, there are scores of websites pretending to be

something they are not. Ordinary people at once relied on the publishers, editors and subject

matter experts to vet the information consumed. But on the unregulated Internet, all bets are off.

Michael Lynch, a philosopher who studies technical change, observed that the internet is “both

the world’s best fact checker and world’s best bias confirmer – often at the same time (Lynch,

M., 2016). Never have we had so much information at our fingertips. Whether this bounty will

make us smarter and better informed or more ignorant and narrow minded will depend our

awareness of this problem and our educational response to it and how this fake news will be

identified by young adolescents and other people to prevent disinformation about civic issues to

spread and flourish.