THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL ENDORSEMENT ON MESSAGE CREDIBILITY OF HEALTH-RELATED FAKE NEWS ON FACEBOOK IN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Keywords:
Fake news, Social endorsement, Message credibilityAbstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of social endorsement on message credibility of health-related fake news on Facebook, using a mixed-method design. Four hundred and twenty-three undergraduate students, who were enrolled in psychology courses at Thammasat University took part in the study. Participants were chosen by convenience sampling and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: high social endorsement, low social endorsement, and control group. All three groups were asked to view twenty health-related news articles, half of which were true and half of which were fake. Participants then assessed each news item’s credibility. Data were analyzed using a two-way mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results suggested that the type of news (true news and fake news) affected message credibility in that participants tended to rate true news as being more credible than fake news. This suggests that prior exposure to correct information can affect message credibility ratings. Results also found that social endorsement did not affect message credibility, implying that samples did not assess news articles by heuristic process, despite the presence of heuristic cues. This also implies that the number of likes simply indicates people’s interest in the news. Potential factors influencing message credibility could include other elements on Facebook posts, such as reaction buttons, comments, and shares. Future research might examine the impact of other social cues such as reaction buttons, comments, and shares to clarify if the valence of social endorsement cues literally influences message credibility, making the study more relevant to the actual Facebook context.
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