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To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia

This study investigates the underlying motives for online fake news sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented time that witnessed a spike in the spread of false content. Motives were identified based on a fake news sharing model developed using the SocioCultural-Psychological-Technology...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Balakrishnan, Vimala, Ng, Kee S., Rahim, Hajar Abdul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9754941/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36540782
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101676
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author Balakrishnan, Vimala
Ng, Kee S.
Rahim, Hajar Abdul
author_facet Balakrishnan, Vimala
Ng, Kee S.
Rahim, Hajar Abdul
author_sort Balakrishnan, Vimala
collection PubMed
description This study investigates the underlying motives for online fake news sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented time that witnessed a spike in the spread of false content. Motives were identified based on a fake news sharing model developed using the SocioCultural-Psychological-Technology (SCulPT) model, Uses and Gratification (U&G) theory and Self-Determination Theory (SDT), and further extended using fake news predictors/gratifications from past studies. A self-administered survey resulted in 869 online Malaysian respondents aged between 18 and 59 years old (Mean = 22.6, Standard deviation = 6.13). Structured equation modelling revealed the fake news sharing model to collectively account for 49.2 % of the variance, with Altruism (β = 0.333; p < 0.001), Ignorance (β = 0.165; p < 0.001) and Entertainment (β = 0.139; p < 0.001) significantly predicting the behaviour. Conversely, Availability/Effort, Pass Time and Fear of Missing Out were found to be insignificant. Our findings indicate that fake news sharing behavior is determined by different motives, hence these need to be understood in order to develop better solutions to mitigate this problem.
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spelling pubmed-97549412022-12-16 To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia Balakrishnan, Vimala Ng, Kee S. Rahim, Hajar Abdul Technol Soc Article This study investigates the underlying motives for online fake news sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented time that witnessed a spike in the spread of false content. Motives were identified based on a fake news sharing model developed using the SocioCultural-Psychological-Technology (SCulPT) model, Uses and Gratification (U&G) theory and Self-Determination Theory (SDT), and further extended using fake news predictors/gratifications from past studies. A self-administered survey resulted in 869 online Malaysian respondents aged between 18 and 59 years old (Mean = 22.6, Standard deviation = 6.13). Structured equation modelling revealed the fake news sharing model to collectively account for 49.2 % of the variance, with Altruism (β = 0.333; p < 0.001), Ignorance (β = 0.165; p < 0.001) and Entertainment (β = 0.139; p < 0.001) significantly predicting the behaviour. Conversely, Availability/Effort, Pass Time and Fear of Missing Out were found to be insignificant. Our findings indicate that fake news sharing behavior is determined by different motives, hence these need to be understood in order to develop better solutions to mitigate this problem. Elsevier Ltd. 2021-08 2021-07-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9754941/ /pubmed/36540782 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101676 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Balakrishnan, Vimala
Ng, Kee S.
Rahim, Hajar Abdul
To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia
title To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia
title_full To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia
title_fullStr To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia
title_short To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia
title_sort to share or not to share – the underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the covid-19 pandemic in malaysia
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9754941/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36540782
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101676
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