Teens and Conspiracy Theories Study

 About 80% of teenagers encounter conspiracy theories online, and many believe at least one, according to a recent report. Many teens also struggle to distinguish between advertisements and opinion, independently reported news and digital marketing campaigns, the survey found. And most think professional news organizations are just as biased as other content creators, according to the survey that formed the basis for the report. The findings underscore the need for stronger media literacy education to help students navigate misinformation. 

News Literacy Project. (2024). News literacy in America: A survey of teen information attitudes, habits and skills. NLP.  https://newslit.org/news-literacy-in-america/

Social Media and Fake News Credibility

This major Yale University study addresses the issue of political misinformation, specifically through social media and fake news. This study found that tagging false news stories as “disputed by third party fact-checkers” has only a small impact on whether readers perceive their headlines as true. Overall, the study showed that the existence of “disputed” tags made participants only slightly more likely to correctly judge the headlines as false. The implications of this study are that there can be more awareness for potential issues surrounding acquiring news and information through social media platforms, where fake news can become reality.

Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2017). The implied truth effect: Attaching warnings to a subset of fake news stories increases perceived accuracy of stories without warnings. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3035384