Fake News: Can Young People Distinguish Fact from Fiction?

The aim of this article is to investigate the specificity of fake news perception by the youth audience and the criteria of truth or falsity. The research method was online surveying. The pilot study involved 200 young residents of Moscow aged 18 to 35; there were no professional journalists among them. The respondents were offered eight news items: four real and four fake ones. Some of the news contained photographs. The respondents were supposed to determine if the news was real or fake and mark criteria they used to make the decision. The findings show that every third respondent’s answer was wrong, i.e. the young audience finds it fairly difficult to identify fake news. Only four respondents managed to identify all the eight news items correctly. The obtained data show that the capability of distinguishing accurate information from distorted information does not depend on the person’s gender, and even the level of education does not make an essential difference. The respondents give the source of information and reference to a known person or organization as the main criteria for trust. The respondents detect fake news by linguostylistic features of the text, the source of information, or lack of respective reference as such. A deeper analysis shows that the respondents, based on their own reliance, scarcely recognize how much the news can be trusted. Reliance is more intuitive than a clear comprehension of the positioning of this or that media, blogger or network group in the Russian media landscape. The primary call for trusting fake news is the lack of a critical perception of the news. In most cases, the respondents used their own guesses, feelings, and even inner voice as the main argument for defining fake news as real. Also, the obtained data makes it possible to conclude that the presence of an image does not allow the audience to determine the truth or falsity of the news, since most respondents do not recognize photos processed with special software as fake, even if they illustrate doubtful news from an unauthorized source. Photos that do not directly relate to the event but contain the image of the person in question in fake news can also mislead the reader. The mere presence of an image is often perceived as a proof of truth. The authors come to the conclusion that even Moscow youth, typically characterized by active media consumption and constant online presence, is not able to cope with the identification of fake news. In future studies, the authors plan to expand the sampling and investigate the perception of doubtful news by the older audience, as well as the audience of other subjects of the Russian Federation.

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