Work

Why Do People Share Political Information and Misinformation Online? Developing a Bottom-Up Descriptive Framework

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: Social media users are key actors in the spreading of misleading or incorrect information. To develop an integrative parsimonious summary of social media users’ own accounts of motives for sharing political information, we conducted: (1) a literature review of motives for personally sharing false information as reported by social media users and (2) qualitative research concerning these motives using an innovative, ecologically valid method. Based on our findings, we developed a pool of items evaluating social media users’ motives for sharing false political information, which we then tested and analyzed the dimensionality of in (3) a pre-registered questionnaire-based study to identify key clusters of users’ own accounts of motives for sharing both true and false political information. The current findings show that there are distinct sets of motives people report for their misinformation sharing behavior: prosocial activism, attack or manipulation of others, entertainment, awareness, political self-expression, and fighting false information. Also, these sets of motives are associated with variables known to predict sharing misinformation, and some of these sets predict social media users’ self-reports of having shared misinformation in the past. Our findings highlight and elaborate on users’ motives that reflect a concern with “making things better” and acting in a manner that is beneficial to society as a whole, and suggest that different interventions may be required to combat misinformation sharing driven by different motives. A potential set of 18 items that could be used in questionnaires measuring motivations for sharing political news online is described.

Source: Social Media + Society

DOI: 10.1177/20563051231192032

Authors: Rotem Perach, Laura Joyner, Deborah Husbands, Tom Buchanan

Institution: University of Westminster

Language: English

Topic: Misinformation and Its Impacts

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $800

Funder: Leverhulme Trust