Journalism students and information consumption in the era of fake news
Tejedor, Santiago (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Periodisme i de Ciències de la Comunicació)
Portalés Oliva, Marta (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Periodisme i de Ciències de la Comunicació)
Carniel Bugs, Ricardo (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Periodisme i de Ciències de la Comunicació)
Cervi, Laura (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Periodisme i de Ciències de la Comunicació)

Date:	2021
Abstract:	Technological platforms, such as social media, are disrupting traditional journalism, as a result the access to high-quality information by citizens is facing important challenges, among which, disinformation and the spread of fake news are the most relevant one. This study approaches how journalism students perceive and assess this phenomenon. The descriptive and exploratory research is based on a hybrid methodology: Two matrix surveys of students and a focus group of professors (n = 6), experts in Multimedia Journalism. The first survey (n = 252), focused on students' perception of fake news, the second (n = 300) aims at finding out the type of content they had received during the recent confinement caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Results show that most of the students prefer online media as a primary source of information instead of social media. Students consider that politics is the main topic of fake news, which, according to the respondents, are mainly distributed by adult users through social networks. The vast majority believe that fake news are created for political interests and a quarter of the sample considers that there is a strong ideological component behind disinformation strategies. Nonetheless, the study also reveals that students do not trust in their ability to distinguish between truthful and false information. For this reason, this research concludes, among other aspects, that the promotion of initiatives and research to promote media literacy and news literacy are decisive in the training of university students.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Fake news ; Information consumption ; Journalism ; Media literacy ; University
Published in:	Media and Communication, Vol. 9 Núm. 1 (2021) , p. 338-350, ISSN 2183-2439

Adreça alternativa: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/3516
DOI: 10.17645/mac.v9i1.3516

13 p, 4.2 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Laboratori de Prospectiva i Recerca en Comunicació, Cultura i Cooperació (LAPREC)
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > The Department of Communication and Education
Articles > Published articles