A space to explore, share and shape the issues facing social and behavioral scientists
SAGE Publishing — the parent of Social Science Space – will hold its Third Annual Critical Thinking Bootcamp on August 9. Leaning more and register here
Besides our own critical faculties, is there a mathematical model that could help us unravel disinformation? Dorje C. Brody suggests there may be.
In a conversation hosted by Stephen Khan of The Conversation UK, Nick Anstead, Irina Borogan and Salil Tripathi discuss fake […]
It’s tempting to blame bots and trolls for spreading misinformation. But really it’s our own fault for sharing so widely. Research has confirmed that lies spread faster than truth – mainly because lies are not bound to the same rules as truth.
Instead of viewing rumors and myths as misperceptions that can be suppressed with accurate information, we should treat them as opportunities to understand — and respond to — the legitimate anxieties of the people who adopt and share them. In other words, we should look at them as valuable feedback that can help improve our own reporting and messaging.
It’s also common to encounter people who are misinformed but don’t know it yet. It’s one thing to double-check your own information, but what’s the best way to talk to someone else about what they think is true – but which is not true?
As part of a pioneering effort to systematically use privacy-protected Facebook data to study the platform’s impact on democracy, the Social Science Research Council and its partner Social Science One have named the inaugural recipients of the Social Media and Democracy Research Grants.
These two studies examined fake news on separate social media platforms; Facebook and Twitter, with both concluding that sharing this content was a rare occurrence but when users did share fake news articles they tended to be older Americans over 65.
Between his chastisements of the media, Twitter rants, and dismissal of scientifically conducted studies, some may wonder what it really means to be a reporter in the age of Donald Trump. Recently, a panel of reporters came together to address this question during the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Gleb Tsipursky is addressing fake news, but not by trying to educate consumers about the viper already in their newsfeed. He harnessed his own skills as a behavioral scientist and is asking newsmakers themselves to not speak or spread fake news in the first place.
Fake news, whether truly phony or merely unpalatable, has become an inescapable trope for modern media consumers. But apart from its propagandist provenance, misinformation and disinformation in our media diets is a genuine threat. Sociologist Nick Adams, in this Social Science Bites podcast, offers hope that a tool he’s developed can improve the media literacy of the populace.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently acknowledged his company’s responsibility in helping create the enormous amount of fake news that plagued the 2016 election – after earlier denials. Yet he offered no concrete details on what Facebook could do about it. Fortunately, there’s a way to fight fake news that already exists and has behavioral science on its side: the Pro-Truth Pledge project.
