Social Media Literacy and User’s Ability to Detect Fake News: The Moderating Role of Information Seeking

The study examines the role of social media literacy (SML) in user’s ability to detect fake news. The pilot study was taken on 131 social media users in Vietnam in May 2020. To overcome weaknesses of self-report method, the study used a real test about social news to measure participant’s ability for fake news detection. Pilot findings showed that social media literacy was a significant and positive predictor of fake news identification. The higher social media literacy, the higher chance that social media users could spot fake news. However, this relationship is conditional, which was dependent on the moderation effect of information seeking. To be more specific, the lower level of using social media for information seeking, the more likely that users can detect fake news. When the motivation of information seeking is high enough (exceed the 5-point value in this research), social media literacy is no longer a significant predictor. The results indicate that information seeking of social media users today is problematic as the more they seek for news, the less likely they can distinguish fake news. Explanations are provided in the study with supporting findings.

The study has several practical implications for media literacy education. First, social media, especially social networking sites, are still the biggest sources to spread fake news that make media literacy education a difficult job. Therefore, social media literacy education cannot separate from news consumption and fake news education. Second, some of solutions to fakes news, such as providing warnings on the accuracy of news, are not effective due to the high frequency and strong repetition effect of fake news exposure. Findings showed that there was a high correlation between social media use, fake news exposure, and user’s perception of fake news prevalence. However, participants in this study still could not score high in the fake news test. Third, besides developing analytic thinking, critical evaluation, or cognitive ability to cope with fake news, users need to improve their information seeking skills at least to know where to find reliable sources, how to navigate and locate information with efficiency and accuracy.