University of Kwazulu-Natal

Research Misinformation And Trust Social Media Lab

Bonisiwe Shabane
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research misinformation and trust social media lab

A coalition of values-aligned partners brought together to counter the forces of online misinformation. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 12, Article number: 1775 (2025) Cite this article With the rapid development of information technology, the proliferation of misinformation has become a global security challenge. Examining the dissemination and governance of misinformation on social media is both challenging and significant. In this study, we review the research progress regarding the spread of misinformation on social media, analyzing a total of 3283 relevant articles indexed in the Web of Science from 2013 to 2023. First, we discuss the concept of misinformation and the data acquisition platforms used in misinformation research.

Next, we propose a new research framework that integrates complex networks, community segmentation, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, revealing the thematic... Subsequently, we comprehensively discuss several research hotspots, including health misinformation, political misinformation, governance methods for misinformation, and future trends. The findings of this study may provide valuable insights for future research on misinformation and serve as references for the formulation of effective governance strategies. Social media has become an effective channel of information acquisition and communication in the digital era (Ulusan and Özejder, 2024); however, it is also an significant place for the generation and dissemination of misinformation... Misinformation refers to information that deviates from the true state of objective things and certain measurement standards (Loftus and Hoffman, 1989). In recent years, a substantial amount of misinformation, such as fake news, rumors, and malicious messages, has emerged on the Internet.

Contributing factors to the breeding and spread of misinformation include a lack of factual experience, emotional fluctuations, and the formation of prejudices. The openness and anonymity of social media facilitate users’ sharing and exchanging of information, but they also render users vulnerable to unlawful behaviors. The wide dissemination of misinformation has serious negative impacts on individuals and society; for instance, in 2013, the Associated Press was hacked and tweeted fake news about an “explosion that injured Barack Obama”, which... The spread of misinformation alters how people comprehend and respond to true information, hindering their ability to distinguish right from wrong. As the number of social media users worldwide continues to rise, concerns about the generation and dissemination of misinformation are growing as dependence on social media are escalating, particularly as reliance on social media... Notably, 56% of users express concerns about the accuracy of the information they encounter, and 40% worry that social media platforms contain misinformation (Newman et al., 2021).

More than 70% of people across 19 countries and regions in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific believe that the spread of online misinformation has become one of the “major threats” in today’s world. The proliferation of misinformation on social media has raised significant concerns among governments and international organizations. To tackle this challenging issue, the European Commission published a Code of Conduct against misinformation in 2018. This initiative is the world’s first industry-wide effort to combat misinformation through self-regulation. The PolitiFact website categorizes a significant amount of social media information into six distinct levels based on credibility. Meanwhile, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) has established a fact-checking community to advance the institutionalization of governance in cyberspace.

The widespread dissemination of misinformation on social media can lead to psychological imbalances, behavioral disorders, economic dislocations, and social disorders at the societal level. Therefore, studying the propagation mechanisms of misinformation and accurately detecting and efficiently intervening its spread on social media is of great significance. Researchers from various disciplines have conducted extensive research focusing on misinformation (Bodaghi et al., 2023; Caled and Silva, 2022; El Mikati et al., 2023; Hangloo and Arora, 2022). For instance, Hangloo and Arora (2022) conducted a comprehensive review of technologies aimed at combating misinformation on social media. Based on recent literature, El Mikati et al. (2023) examined the implications of health misinformation, highlighting the consistencies and differences among various forms of misinformation.

Caled and Silva (2022) explored the mechanism behind the generation and dissemination of misinformation in social networks and proposed several strategies for addressing it. As noted by Bodaghi et al. (2023), misinformation can be classified as intentional or unintentional, and they have suggested effective strategies for detecting, verifying, and mitigating both types. Processing political misinformation: Comprehending the Trump phenomenon Tackling misinformation: What researchers could do with social media data Correcting misinformation—A challenge for education and cognitive science

Does truth matter to voters? The effects of correcting political misinformation in an Australian sample The emerging science of content labeling: Contextualizing social media content moderation Headline: How Media Coverage of Misinformation Shapes Public Trust and Perceptions: A Deep Dive into the Complex Relationship Between News, Social Media, and Public Trust In an era dominated by information overload and the proliferation of misinformation, understanding the intricate relationship between media coverage, public perception, and trust is paramount. Emily Thorson, associate professor of political science at Syracuse University and senior research associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, tackles this complex issue in her new book, “How News Coverage of Misinformation Shapes...

Through meticulous content analysis and rigorous experimental research, Thorson unveils a nuanced picture of how media narratives surrounding misinformation impact public trust in both traditional and social media platforms. Her findings shed light on the often-counterintuitive ways in which news consumption shapes public attitudes, offering valuable insights for journalists, policymakers, and media consumers alike. Thorson’s central argument revolves around the media’s tendency to portray social media as the primary culprit in the spread of misinformation. Her content analysis reveals a dominant narrative within mainstream media that places blame squarely on social media platforms for the proliferation of false or misleading information. This narrative, often presented without providing comprehensive context or acknowledging the role of traditional media in amplifying misinformation, has significant consequences for public trust. The book demonstrates how consistent exposure to this narrative can erode public confidence in social media as a reliable source of news and information, while simultaneously bolstering trust in traditional print journalism.

This seemingly paradoxical effect stems from the implicit reinforcement of traditional journalistic norms and values that often accompanies criticisms of social media’s less regulated information landscape. The experimental research presented in Thorson’s book further strengthens this argument. Through controlled experiments, she demonstrates a causal link between exposure to news coverage of misinformation and changes in public trust. Participants exposed to news stories focusing on misinformation exhibited decreased trust in social media as a news source, coupled with increased trust in print journalism. This effect, Thorson argues, is driven by a heightened awareness of the perceived value of traditional journalistic practices, such as fact-checking, editorial oversight, and source verification, in contrast to the often-unvetted nature of information... This dynamic underscores the powerful influence of media narratives in shaping public perceptions of media credibility.

Interestingly, Thorson’s research also reveals that exposure to news about misinformation does not significantly impact broader political trust or individuals’ sense of political efficacy. This suggests that while concerns about misinformation may affect trust in specific media platforms, they do not necessarily translate into a broader disillusionment with the political system or a diminished sense of one’s ability... Furthermore, Thorson’s findings indicate that political interest serves as a strong predictor of interest in news coverage of misinformation across the political spectrum. This highlights the importance of engaging individuals with varying political viewpoints in discussions about media literacy and critical information consumption. Received 2022 Oct 20; Revised 2023 Jan 7; Accepted 2023 Jan 12; Issue date 2023. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source.

These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Online social networks (OSNs) are rapidly growing and have become a huge source of all kinds of global and local news for millions of users. However, OSNs are a double-edged sword. Although the great advantages they offer such as unlimited easy communication and instant news and information, they can also have many disadvantages and issues. One of their major challenging issues is the spread of fake news. Fake news identification is still a complex unresolved issue.

Furthermore, fake news detection on OSNs presents unique characteristics and challenges that make finding a solution anything but trivial. On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI) approaches are still incapable of overcoming this challenging problem. To make matters worse, AI techniques such as machine learning and deep learning are leveraged to deceive people by creating and disseminating fake content. Consequently, automatic fake news detection remains a huge challenge, primarily because the content is designed in a way to closely resemble the truth, and it is often hard to determine its veracity by AI... This work aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of fake news research as well as a fundamental review of existing approaches used to detect and prevent fake news from spreading via OSNs. We present the research problem and the existing challenges, discuss the state of the art in existing approaches for fake news detection, and point out the future research directions in tackling the challenges.

Keywords: Fake news, Disinformation, Misinformation, Information disorder, Online deception, Online social networks Fake news, disinformation and misinformation have become such a scourge that Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, is quoted to have said (making an implicit reference to... Indeed, although online social networks (OSNs), also called social media, have improved the ease with which real-time information is broadcast; its popularity and its massive use have expanded the spread of fake news by... Fake news may refer to the manipulation of information that can be carried out through the production of false information, or the distortion of true information. However, that does not mean that this problem is only created with social media. A long time ago, there were rumors in the traditional media that Elvis was not dead,2 that the Earth was flat,3 that aliens had invaded us,4, etc.

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