To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia

Balakrishnan, Vimala; Ng, Kee Seong; Rahim, Hajar Abdul

doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101676

Cited by 82 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…In our study, male participants were more willing to vaccinate children at the 95% effectiveness level, and this was also seen in a survey in high-income countries [43]. A study on H1N1 vaccination also showed similar results, where fathers were more willing than mothers to vaccinate their child [34].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Adults’ Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccine for Children in Selected Lower- and Middle-Income Countries

et al. 2021

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Since emergency approval of COVID-19 vaccines for children aged between 12 and 15 years old was recently obtained in the United States and Europe, we aimed to assess the willingness to vaccinate children with a COVID-19 vaccine in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Therefore, we launched an online cross-sectional survey in several LMICs. Questions relating to socio-demographic information, knowledge of COVID-19, level of fear/worry of being infected with COVID-19, and willingness to vaccinate children with the COVID-19 vaccine at 50%, 75% and 95% effectiveness levels, were asked. Of the 6571 participants (mean age = 39 ± 14 years), 64.0%, 72.6%, and 92.9% were willing to vaccinate children at 50%, 75%, and 95% effectiveness levels, respectively. Respondents who were undergraduates, who were more worried/fearful about COVID-19, had higher knowledge scores regarding COVID-19, and a higher belief that COVID-19 vaccination is important to protect others, were more willing to accept COVID-19 vaccination of children. COVID-19 vaccination of children will limit the spread of the virus, especially in schools; it may decrease the need for school closures which has a negative effect on child development. Findings from this study are useful for health promotion strategies during COVID-19 vaccination implementation among children in LMICs.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Adults’ Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccine for Children in Selected Lower- and Middle-Income Countries

et al. 2021

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“…A majority of prior research has used a psychological perspective to explicate unverified information sharing. The first research line has adopted the uses and gratifications theory and viewed unverified information sharing as a behavior motivated by fulfilling certain needs, such as socialization, self-promotion, pass time, entertainment, and altruism (Islam et al, 2020;Apuke and Omar, 2021;Balakrishnan et al, 2021). The second line has employed the cognitive overload approach and assumed that human brains overloaded by information have limited processing capability; to cope with cognitive overload, people tend to share information without authentication (Fox et al, 2007;Talwar et al, 2019;Laato et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the uses and gratifications theory has illuminated the motives of people's information sharing on social media, such as socialization, self-promotion, entertainment, pass time, and altruism (Islam et al, 2020;Apuke and Omar, 2021;Balakrishnan et al, 2021), these motives do not capture the uniqueness of sharing without verification. In other words, people share information without verifying its content, mainly because they have limited processing capability when faced with the uncertainty of the pandemic and the excessive amount of rapidly updating information (Fox et al, 2007;Sweller, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Information Overload and Unverified Information Sharing on WeChat Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Moderated Mediation Model of Anxiety and Perceived Herd

Huang

Lei

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Individuals’ unverified information sharing on social media, namely, sharing information without verification, is a major cause of the widespread misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The association between perceived information overload and unverified information sharing has been well documented in the cognitive overload approach. However, little is known about the underlying mechanism of this process. This study aims to explore the mediating role of anxiety and the moderating role of perceived herd between perceived information overload and unverified information sharing on WeChat. Anxiety demonstrates people’s emotional response to the pandemic, whereas perceived herd describes a willingness to share certain information if it has been shared by many. The results of an online survey in China (N = 525) showed that perceived information overload was positively associated with unverified information sharing. In addition, this relationship was partially mediated by anxiety. Moreover, perceived herd positively moderated the link between anxiety and unverified information sharing, such that the indirect effect of perceived information overload on unverified information sharing via anxiety was significant in conditions where the level of perceived herd was high, whereas the indirect effect was not significant in conditions where the level of perceived herd was low. The moderated mediation model extends the cognitive overload approach and indicates that unverified information sharing is not only an individual strategy to cope with information overload but also a herding behavior to manage anxiety. Practical implications for curbing people’s tendencies toward unverified information sharing on social media are discussed.

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“…There is a paucity of studies quantitatively investigating the factors associated to misinformation. While age has been primarily associated to sharing fake news, evidence is mixed [26,27], limited to developed countries' population and social media, and not taking into account the whole possible set of socio-demographic, economic and political predictors Altruism [28,29] and self-promotion and entertainment [30] have been also described as motives for sharing fake news. However, this research mainly focused on motivational or personality factors in the technology literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are socio-demographic and economic characteristics good predictors of misinformation during an epidemic?

Maffioli

Gonzalez

2022

PLOS Glob Public Health

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We combine data on beliefs about the origin of the 2014 Ebola outbreak with two supervised machine learning methods to predict who is more likely to be misinformed. Contrary to popular beliefs, we uncover that, socio-demographic and economic indicators play a minor role in predicting those who are misinformed: misinformed individuals are not any poorer, older, less educated, more economically distressed, more rural, or ethnically different than individuals who are informed. However, they are more likely to report high levels of distrust, especially towards governmental institutions. By distinguishing between types of beliefs, distrust in the central government is the primary predictor of individuals assigning a political origin to the epidemic, while Muslim religion is the most important predictor of whether the individual assigns a supernatural origin. Instead, educational level has a markedly higher importance for ethnic beliefs. Taken together, the results highlight that government trust might play the most important role in reducing misinformation during epidemics.

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To share or not to share – The underlying motives of sharing fake news amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia

Cited by 82 publications

References 62 publications

Adults’ Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccine for Children in Selected Lower- and Middle-Income Countries

Adults’ Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccine for Children in Selected Lower- and Middle-Income Countries

Perceived Information Overload and Unverified Information Sharing on WeChat Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Moderated Mediation Model of Anxiety and Perceived Herd

Are socio-demographic and economic characteristics good predictors of misinformation during an epidemic?

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