When one hears the term "fake news" they often refer to the internet pandemic that has spread across social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. While the authors of these sources are largely anonymous, the groups of people who tend to fall for these news sources and continue to spread this type of media are easier to identify.
According to Lisa Marshall, author of CU Boulder Today's article "Who shares the most fake news? New study sheds light", notes in her article that to little surprise those who fall to the extreme far left and right are traditionally responsible for sharing a significant portion of fake news. More specifically, 26% of fake news is shared on Facebook and 32% on Twitter is shared by individuals who identify as extreme conservatives, and 17.5% of Facebook fake news and 16.4% on Twitter is shared by self-identified extreme liberals.
But why do they believe these sources? According to The New York Times article, "Why Do People Fall for Fake News", psychologists have noted that "our ability to reason is hijacked by our partisan convictions...when it comes to politically charged issues, people use their intellectual abilities to persuade themselves to believe what they want to be true rather than attempting to actually discover the truth." That combined with personal laziness, consumers repeatedly fall victim to the rhetorical strategies of the author. As the spread of fake news becomes more widely-known and the reasoning behind its strong influence to readers becomes clear, it is now the consumer's turn to look confirm the accuracy of their sources and our own personal biases and how we would like them to appear in our news.
Links
"Who shares the most fake news? New study sheds light": https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/06/17/who-shares-most-fake-news-new-study-sheds-light
"Why Do People Fall for Fake News?": https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/opinion/sunday/fake-news.html
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