University students engagement with fake news: the portuguese case

Abstract

The development of technological and communication platforms generates academic, political and social debates. In the field of Media Studies, there is a special concern with the younger generations, as studies document that they express particular behaviors due to the increased diffusion of digital consumption in their lives (Silveira & Amaral, 2018). In the field of media literacy, news literacy becomes even more relevant today due to the rise of fake news, which is one of the biggest challenges for digital journalism today, because it endangers the truth and instigates misinformation, which could have serious repercussions for society in general and for the youngest more susceptible generations, in particular. Based on these assumptions, this article comprehends and analyses the dynamics of reception of news and social media by university students studying in Portugal, specifically in the Faculty of Design, Technology and Communication – European Unievrsity of Lisbon (in the academic year 2018/2019), located in Lisbon. Through the development of a qualitative methodology, we set to find the participants particular uses of social media for news access and consumption. We intend to define these audiences preference profiles, identify practices, analyse their relationship with the media and find patterns in their use of technology to access information and fake news. The results allow us to conclude that these audiences get their news almost exclusively through online platforms. Some of them distinguish fake news due to format and content, while others share them unknowingly. They seem to rely more on newspaper and TV for reliable sources of information and think that most of fake news are found online. All seem to think that the proliferation of fake news is discrediting journalism and the media in general and both media and citizens should strive to make news literacy a reality for all.

Assessing the COVID-19 infodemic and misinformation among university students in Morocco

“…A study on Covid-19-related knowledge among Jordanian university students found similarly the preponderance of internet, especially of social media, as source of information (Olaimat et al, 2020). Some university students in a Portuguese study depend exclusively on social media for Covid-19-related information (Silveira & Gancho, 2021). Another study among Portuguese university students found that searches on social media or using internet search engines rather than a direct consultation of public body websites was associated with insufficient digital health literacy (Rosário et al, 2020).…”

The relationship between the belief in fake news and the strategies to seek information from young Portuguese people

“…Este estudo é um contributo para o debate contemporâneo no campo da comunicação e da literacia mediática no contexto das fake news. Apesar de o fenómeno das fake news carecer ainda de mais investigação em Portugal, encontramos vários estudos na literatura que procuraram perceber os hábitos e a suscetibilidade dos jovens portugueses em relação a estas (Catalina-García et al, 2019;Figueira & Santos, 2019;Silveira & Gancho, 2021;Sobral & de Morais, 2020). No entanto, não só em Portugal, mas também noutros países, o interesse académico tem-se focado em estudantes universitários (de Vicente Domínguez et al, 2021;Herrera & Belda, 2021;Leeder, 2019).…”

“…Quanto aos hábitos dos mais jovens de consumir notícias, sabe-se que acedem preferencialmente a notícias online, através maioritariamente de smartphones (Ahmed, 2020;Amaral et al, 2017;Antunovic et al, 2018;Johnson & St. John III, 2020;Silveira & Gancho, 2021), ainda que a exposição a notícias aconteça de forma acidental e não-direta (Antunovic et al, 2018).…”