'No, auntie, that's false': Female baby boomers develop critical skills to confront fake news with guidance from relatives

TL;DR

This study explores how female baby boomers develop critical skills to identify and confront fake news on Facebook, primarily through family support, highlighting their evolving media literacy.

Contribution

It provides qualitative insights into how female baby boomers learn to recognize and handle fake news, emphasizing the role of family guidance in skill development.

Findings

Participants recognize fake news but face understanding limitations.

Family support aids in developing critical filtering skills.

Participants show improved ability to identify dubious information.

Abstract

The spread of fake news has been increasing, which gives rise to a special interest in the development of identification and coping skills among news consumers so that they can filter out misleading information. Studies suggest that older people share more fake news from social media. There is scarce literature that analyse how baby boomers behave in the face of fake news. The purpose of this study is to examine how female baby boomers deal with fake news on Facebook and their available resources to learn how to identify and handle dubious information. A qualitative study and thematic analysis were conducted using information obtained from interviewing female baby boomers. Four themes emerge from the analysis, revealing that participants recognise that they can identify fake news but may not always be able to do so due to limitations in their understanding of an issue or uncertainty about its source. Participants show participants empirically develop critical identification and filtering skills with the assistance from close family members.