Cover not available
Article published In:
Discourses of Fake News
Edited by Scott Wright
[Journal of Language and Politics 20:5] 2021
► pp. 783–802

Poisoning the information well?

The impact of fake news on news media credibility

ORCID logo | Nanyang Technological University Singapore
 | Nanyang Technological University Singapore
 | Boston College
 | Nanyang Technological University Singapore
This study examines the impact of fake news discourse on perceptions of news media credibility. If participants are told they have been exposed to fake news, does this lead them to trust information institutions less, including the news media? Study 1 (n = 188) found that news media credibility decreased when participants were told they saw fake news, while news credibility did not change when participants were told they saw real news. Study 2 (n = 400) found that those who saw fake news – and were told they saw a fake news post – decreased their trust in the news media while those who saw fake news and were not debriefed did not change their perceptions of the news media. This shows that the social impact of fake news is not limited to its direct consequences of misinforming individuals, but also includes the potentially adverse effects of discussing fake news.
Keywords: credibility, Facebook, fake news, journalism, social media, trust
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The problem of fake news
  • 3.The rise of fact-checking
  • 4.Conducting experiments
    • 4.1Study 1
      • 4.1.1Procedure
      • 4.1.2Analysis and results
    • 4.2Study 2
      • 4.2.1Analysis and results
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 16 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21029.tan
References (56)
References
Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. 2017. “Social media and fake news in the 2016 election.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31 (2):211–236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Amazeen, Michelle, Emily Thorson, Ashley Muddiman, and Lucas Graves. 2018. “Correcting political and consumer misperceptions: The effectiveness and effects of rating scale versus contextual correction formats.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 95 (1):28–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Appelman, Alyssa, and S. Shyam Sundar. 2015. “Measuring message credibility.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 93 (1):59–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakir, Vian, and Andrew McStay. 2018. “Fake news and the economy of emotions.” Digital Journalism 6 (2):154–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ball, James. 2018. Distrust of social media is dragging traditional journalism down. The Guardian. Accessed October 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Barthel, Michael, Amy Mitchell, and Jesse Holcomb. 2016. Many Americans believe fake news is sowing confusion. Pew Research Center. Accessed March 17, 2016.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. Lance, and Steven Livingston. 2018. "The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions." European Journal of Communication 33 (2):122-139. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Bucy, Erik P., Paul D’Angelo, and Nichole M. Bauer. 2014. “Crisis, credibility, and the press: A priming model of news evaluation.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 19 (4):453–475. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheruiyot, David, and Raul Ferrer-Conill. 2018. ““Fact-Checking Africa:” Epistemologies, data and the expansion of journalistic discourse.” Digital Journalism 6 (8):964–975. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chua, Melanie. 2013. How should the Singapore government regulate online news sites? Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Accessed February 14, 2015.Google Scholar
Chua, Lee Hoong. 1998. Walking the tightrope, press freedom and professional standards in Asia. Edited by Asad Latiff. Singapore: AMIC.Google Scholar
Chung, Chung Joo, Yoonjae Nam, and Michael A. Stefanone. 2012. “Exploring online news credibility: The relative influence of traditional and technological factors.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 17 (2):171–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Department of Statistics. 2018. Population trends 2018.Google Scholar
Ecker, Ullrich, Stephan Lewandowsky, O. Fenton, and K. Martin. 2014. “Do people keep believing because they want to? Preexisting attitudes and the continued influence of misinformation.” Memory and Cognition 42 (2):292–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Egelhofer, Jana Laura, and Sophie Lecheler. 2019. “Fake news as a two-dimensional phenomenon: a framework and research agenda.” Annals of the International Communication Association 43 (2):97–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frayer, Lauren. 2018. Viral Whatsapp messages are triggering mob killings in India. NPR. Accessed August 29, 2018.Google Scholar
Gaziano, Cecilie, and Kristin McGrath. 1986. “Measuring the concept of credibility.” Journalism Quarterly 63 (3):451–462. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Graves, Lucas, and Federica Cherubini. 2016. The rise of fact-checking sites in Europe. Accessed August 15, 2018.Google Scholar
Heider, F. 1958. The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York, NY: Wiley. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hess, Kristy, and Lisa Waller. 2017. Local journalism in a digital world. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ingram, Matthew. 2018. Most Americans say they have lost trust in the media. Columbia Journalism Review. Accessed October 31, 2019.Google Scholar
Kang, Hyunjin, Keunmin Bae, Shaoke Zhang, and S. Shyam Sundar. 2011. “Source cues in online news: Is the proximate source more powerful than distal sources?” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 88 (4):719–736. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kohring, Matthias, and Jörg Matthes. 2007. “Trust in news media: Development and validation of a multidimensional scale.” Communication Research 34 (2):231–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ladd, Jonathan. 2011. Why Americans hate the media and how it matters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lazer, David M. J., Matthew A. Baum, Yochai Benkler, Adam J. Berinsky, Kelly M. Greenhill, Filippo Menczer, Miriam J. Metzger, Brendan Nyhan, Gordon Pennycook, David Rothschild, Michael Schudson, Steven A. Sloman, Cass R. Sunstein, Emily A. Thorson, Duncan J. Watts, and Jonathan L. Zittrain. 2018. “The science of fake news.” Science 359 (6380):1094. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, J. David, and Andrew Weigert. 1985. “Trust as a social reality.” Social Forces 63 (4):967–985. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lim, Adrian. 2019. “Parliament: Fake news law covers closed platforms like chat groups and social media groups, says Edwin Tong.” The Straits Times. [URL]
Luhmann, N. 1979. Trust and Power. New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Mantzarlis, Alexios. 2015. Will verification kill fact-checking? Poynter. Retrieved from [URL]Google Scholar
Meade, Amanda. 2018. Australia’s trust in media at record low as ‘fake news’ fears grow, survey finds. The Guardian. Accessed October 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Metzger, Miriam J., Andrew J. Flanagin, Keren Eyal, Daisy R. Lemus, and Robert M. McCann. 2003. “Credibility for the 21st century: Integrating perspectives on source, message, and media credibility in the contemporary media environment.” Annals of the International Communication Association 27 (1):293–335. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Philip. 1988. “Defining and measuring credibility of newspapers: Developing an index.” Journalism Quarterly 65 (3):567–588. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mezulis, Amy H., Lyn Y. Abramson, Janet S. Hyde, and Benjamin L. Hankin. 2004. “Is there a universal positivity bias in attributions? A meta-analytic review of individual, developmental, and cultural differences in the self-serving attributional bias.” Psychological Bulletin 130 (5):711–747. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Jacob L., and Harsh Taneja. 2018. “The small, disloyal fake news audience: The role of audience availability in fake news consumption.” New Media & Society 20 (10):3720–3737. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ng, Huiwen. 2018. “4 in 5 Singaporeans confident in spotting fake news but 90 per cent wrong when put to the test: Survey.” The Straits Times, September 27. [URL]
Nugent, Ciara. 2018. France is voting on a law banning fake news. Here’s how it could work. Time. Accessed August 15, 2018.Google Scholar
Owens, Simon. 2019. Why the “Trump Bump” didn’t deliver much revenue to news publishers. Medium. Accessed October 31, 2019.Google Scholar
Pennycook, Gordon, T. D. Cannon, and D. G. Rand. 2018. “Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 147 (12):1865–1880. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, Gordon, and David G. Rand. 2018. “Lazy, not biased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning.” Cognition. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shin, Jieun, and Kjerstin Thorson. 2017. “Partisan selective sharing: The biased diffusion of fact-checking messages on social media.” Journal of Communication 67 (2):233–255. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soon, Carol, and Tarn How Tan. 2016. "The media freedom-credibility paradox." Media Asia 43 (3-4):176-190. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Spohr, Dominic. 2017. “Fake news and ideological polarization: Filter bubbles and selective exposure on social media.” Business Information Review 34 (3):150–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tandoc, Edson. 2019. Singapore. Reuters Institute Digital News Report. Accessed July 19, 2019.Google Scholar
Tandoc, Edson, and Andrew Duffy. 2016. “Keeping up with the audiences: Journalistic role expectations in Singapore.” International Journal of Communication 101 (2016):3338–3358. 1932-8036/20160005Google Scholar
Tandoc, Edson, Joy Jenkins, and Stephanie Craft. 2019. “Fake news as a critical incident in journalism.” Journalism Practice 13 (6):673–689. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tandoc, Edson, Zheng Wei Lim, and Richard Ling. 2017. “Defining “fake news:” A typology of scholarly definitions.” Digital Journalism 6 (2):137–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thorson, Emily. 2016. “Belief echoes: The persistent effects of corrected misinformation.” Political Communication 33 (3):460–480. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsfati, Yariv, and Joseph N Cappella. 2003. "Do people watch what they do not trust? Exploring the association between news media skepticism and exposure." Communication Research 30 (5):504-529. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Turcotte, Jason, Chance York, Jacob Irving, Rosanne M. Scholl, and Raymond J. Pingree. 2015. “News recommendations from social media opinion leaders: Effects on media trust and information seeking.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 20 (5):520–535. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vargo, Chris, Lei Guo, and Michelle Amazeen. 2017. “The agenda-setting power of fake news: A big data analysis of the online media landscape from 2014 to 2016.” New Media & Society: 1461444817712086. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vaswani, Karishma. 2019. Concern over Singapore’s anti-fake news law. BBC News. Accessed July 17, 2019.Google Scholar
Verstraete, Mark, and Derek Bambauer. 2018. “Ecosystem of Distrust.” First Amendment Law Review 16 (129):129–152.Google Scholar
Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral. 2018. “The spread of true and false news online.” Science 359 (6380):1146–1151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wasserman, Herman. 2017. “Fake news from Africa: Panics, politics and paradigms.” Journalism: 1464884917746861. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wineburg, S., McGrew, S., Breakstone, J., & Ortega, T. (2016). Evaluating information: The cornerstone of civic online reasoning. Stanford Digital Repository. Retrieved from [URL]Google Scholar
Young, Dannagal G., Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Shannon Poulsen, and Abigail Goldring. 2017. “Fact-checking effectiveness as a function of format and tone: Evaluating FactCheck.org and FlackCheck.org.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 95 (1):49–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (16)

Cited by 16 other publications

Deavours, Danielle & Chris Roberts
2024. The Visual Journalism Credibility Scale: Including Pathos for Visual Journalists in the Convergent Media Era. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly DOI logo
Hasell, Ariel & Audrey Halversen
2024. Feeling Misinformed? The Role of Perceived Difficulty in Evaluating Information Online in News Avoidance and News Fatigue. Journalism Studies 25:12 ► pp. 1441 ff. DOI logo
Oswald, C.J.
2024. Fake news & bad science journalism: the case against insincerity. Inquiry ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Radnitz, Scott & Yuan Hsiao
2024. Responses to contested information amid polarized politics: evidence from the US and Taiwan. Information, Communication & Society ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Yeleussiz, A. & M.Kh. Tankibayeva
2024. ASSESSING TEACHERS’ MEDIA LITERACY COMPETENCIES IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. Журнал серии «Педагогические науки» 75:4 DOI logo
Adams, Zoë, Magda Osman, Christos Bechlivanidis & Björn Meder
2023. (Why) Is Misinformation a Problem?. Perspectives on Psychological Science 18:6 ► pp. 1436 ff. DOI logo
Bryanov, Kirill, Reinhold Kliegl, Olessia Koltsova, Alex Miltsov, Sergei Pashakhin, Alexander Porshnev, Yadviga Sinyavskaya, Maksim Terpilovskii & Victoria Vziatysheva
2023. What Drives Perceptions of Foreign News Coverage Credibility? A Cross-National Experiment Including Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. Political Communication 40:2 ► pp. 115 ff. DOI logo
Ei, Chew Han & Chong Yen Kiat
2023. Understanding the Nature of Misinformation on Publicly Accessible Messaging Platforms: The Case of Ivermectin in Singapore. In Mobile Communication and Online Falsehoods in Asia [Mobile Communication in Asia: Local Insights, Global Implications, ], ► pp. 149 ff. DOI logo
Lee, Taeyoung, Thomas Johnson, Chenyan Jia & Ivan Lacasa-Mas
2023. How social media users become misinformed: The roles of news-finds-me perception and misinformation exposure in COVID-19 misperception. New Media & Society DOI logo
Serman, Zehra Ece & Julian Sims
2023. Source Credibility Theory: SME Hospitality Sector Blog Posting During the Covid-19 Pandemic. Information Systems Frontiers 25:6 ► pp. 2317 ff. DOI logo
Tandoc, Edson & Seth Seet
2023. Winning the game against fake news? Using games to inoculate adolescents and young adults in Singapore against fake news. Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico 29:4 ► pp. 771 ff. DOI logo
Acerbi, Alberto, Sacha Altay & Hugo Mercier
2022. Research note: Fighting misinformation or fighting for information?. Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review DOI logo
Carson, Andrea & Scott Wright
2022. Fake news and democracy: definitions, impact and response. Australian Journal of Political Science 57:3 ► pp. 221 ff. DOI logo
Gibbons, Andrew & Andrea Carson
2022. What is misinformation and disinformation? Understanding multi-stakeholders’ perspectives in the Asia Pacific. Australian Journal of Political Science 57:3 ► pp. 231 ff. DOI logo
Lien, Cai Hui, James Lee & Edson C. Tandoc
2022. Facing Fakes: Understanding Tech Platforms’ Responses to Online Falsehoods. Digital Journalism 10:5 ► pp. 761 ff. DOI logo
Wright, Scott
2021. Discourses of fake news. Journal of Language and Politics 20:5 ► pp. 641 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.