Fake videosVideo Fake News: Believed More, Shared More Than Text, Audio Versions
People are more likely to believe fake news in a video format compared to text and audio forms of the same story. People are also more willing to share these videos with people in their network.
People are more likely to believe fake news in a video format compared to text and audio forms of the same story, according to a team of researchers. They added that people are also more willing to share these videos with people in their network.
In a study, about 58 percent of people who viewed a fake news video on an instant messaging smartphone app believed the video was real, compared to 48 percent of the people who heard the same story in audio format. Only 33 percent of the audience who read the article found the information credible.
The researchers said that the impulse to “believe what you see” may make video fake news a more stealthy and possibly more dangerous form of social media manipulation.
“When you see something, you believe in it more because it seems so obviously real,” said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory and an affiliate of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences. “With text, you must use your imagination and put yourself in that situation or scene that’s described in a series of words. But with video, it’s a much more direct experience. You are seeing it and you’re feeling it. And so, people seldom stop to think when they see a video, that they’ve seen something that is not true.”
The study shows that this tendency to believe more in video fakes is higher among people who are less involved in the topic of the story, whereas those who are highly involved tend to be persuaded more by text and audio fakes, said the researchers.
Viral Videos
People were also more likely to share the video compared to audio- or text-based versions of the story, according to Maria D. Molina, assistant professor of advertising and public relations, Michigan State, who worked with Sundar on the study. About 78 percent of study participants who saw the video said they would share the video with others in their network, compared to 63 percent who heard the story and 67 percent who read the story.
