Local Perceptions and Practices of News Sharing and Fake News
Gionnieve Lim, Simon T. Perrault
TL;DR
This study investigates local perceptions and practices surrounding news sharing and fake news in Singapore through an online survey of $N=75$ Singapore-based respondents (SG-75), including subsets $SharedNews-59$ and $SeenFake-57$. It finds that fake news is more prevalent on instant messaging apps than on social media, while government platforms command the highest trust; respondents routinely verify before sharing, using search engines ($89.8\%$) and government sources ($88.1\%$). The results point to the need for locally tailored mitigation, particularly interventions in instant messaging environments, nuanced trust-building strategies, and greater government-citizen engagement, given a perceived decline in trust and limited effectiveness of current efforts. Limitations include a younger, digitally proficient sample and the authors’ suggestion to incorporate interviews to enrich future work. $\ $
Abstract
Fake news is a prevalent problem, particularly in digital media, that undermines trust and cooperation among people. As a variety of global mitigation efforts arise, the understanding of how people consider fake news becomes important, especially in local contexts. To that end, we carried out a survey with 75 participants in Singapore to understand people's perceptions of and practices with news (real and fake). Locally, fake news was found to be more pervasive in instant messaging apps than in social media, with the problem attributed more strongly to sharing than to creation. Good news sharing practices were generally observed. Highest trust was reported in government communication platforms across 11 media items. These results show that Singapore possesses a peculiar sociocultural scene, suggesting that efforts directed towards locally relevant measures may be more effective in addressing fake news in Singapore. We detail the survey results and recommended directions in this paper.