Local Perceptions and Practices of News Sharing and Fake News

TL;DR

This study explores how people in Singapore perceive and share news, especially fake news, revealing local patterns and trust levels across different media, which can inform targeted mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into local perceptions and practices regarding fake news in Singapore, highlighting the importance of culturally tailored interventions.

Findings

Fake news is more common in messaging apps than social media.

Sharing, not creation, is the main source of fake news spread.

Government platforms are the most trusted news sources.

Abstract

Fake news is a prevalent problem, particularly in digital media, that undermines trust and cooperation among people. As a variety of global mitigation efforts arise, the understanding of how people consider fake news becomes important, especially in local contexts. To that end, we carried out a survey with 75 participants in Singapore to understand people's perceptions of and practices with news (real and fake). Locally, fake news was found to be more pervasive in instant messaging apps than in social media, with the problem attributed more strongly to sharing than to creation. Good news sharing practices were generally observed. Highest trust was reported in government communication platforms across 11 media items. These results show that Singapore possesses a peculiar sociocultural scene, suggesting that efforts directed towards locally relevant measures may be more effective in addressing fake news in Singapore. We detail the survey results and recommended directions in this paper.