Misinformation and Fake News in Developing Countries

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Contemporary social media platforms offer a rich ground for the spread of misinformation. Since the 2016 US election, there has been widespread concern that misinformation on social media distorts public opinion, reduces trust in democracy and encourages violence (Tucker et al. 2017). But, misinformation is not merely an American problem. Though false and misleading stories are worrisome for advanced democracies, they portend a stronger and more immediate crisis for developing and emerging economies.

The menace of fake news is in developing countries is compounded by the presence of three factors that make such countries distinctly vulnerable to misinformation. First, developing countries traditionally have lower literacy and education rates. Studies demonstrate that people with higher education have more accurate beliefs about the news (Alcott and Gentzkow 2017). Second, the expansion of digital economy in developing democracies has meant that more users are now connected to the internet in emerging economies than ever before. Paradoxically, this leap in development might also mean that the novelty and unfamiliarity of the medium coupled with the fascination it inspires makes users more vulnerable to the information they receive online. Finally, a key factor differentiating misinformation in developing contexts is the medium through which it is sent and received. Unlike the US, fake news in developing countries spreads mainly on chat-based apps, the most common of which is WhatsApp. However, an important reason contributing to the app’s popularity is also at the heart of the fake news problem: WhatsApp messages are private and protected by encryption. This means that no one, including the app developers and owners themselves, has access to see, read and analyze messages. The consequence of this feature is that tracing the source or extent of spread of a message in a network is close to impossible, making WhatsApp akin to a “black hole’’ of fake news.

New access to internet coupled with low education rates and the privacy and encryption of WhatsApp together serve to magnify the already severe misinformation crisis in developing countries. These features of suggest the need to take a step back in theorizing misinformation and bring to the fore new models of information consumption and vulnerability to fake news that specifically characterize developing countries. The papers on this panel focus on misinformation in three such developing contexts: Mexico, Brazil, and India. Together, the research agenda of these papers pursues two complementary goals: (1) characterizing belief in rumors and political talk on social media, (2) providing solutions to combat misinformation.

Our first paper, authored by Patrícia Rossini, Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Vanessa Veiga de Oliveira and Erica Anita Baptista examines misinformation and WhatsApp in the Brazilian context. Using survey data, the paper highlights the link between sharing misinformation and cross-cutting exposure, political talk and social corrections, demonstrating that the intimate nature of WhatsApp communication has important consequences for the dynamics of misinformation sharing. Our second paper discusses the spread of misinformation on WhatsApp in the Mexican context. Authored by Noam Lupu, Alberto Simpser, and Elizabeth J. Zechmeister, this paper asks whether social media is viewed as a positive for democracy and whether high social media users differ in their tendencies to believe political rumors. The study’s findings have important implications for understanding the role that social media plays in connecting individuals to politics. Our last two papers highlight possible solutions and interventions to combat the misinformation crisis in the Indian context. The third paper, authored by Sumitra Badrinathan, tests the efficacy of a media literacy intervention in increasing respondents’ ability to identify fake news through a large field experiment in Bihar, India. The fourth paper, authored by Simon Chauchard, DJ Flynn, and Sumitra Badrinathan, examines whether the source and the sophistication of the corrective messages posted by users can affect one's ability to counter misinformation. The paper experimentally evaluates the effect of different types of corrective, user-driven messages on the persistence of misinformed beliefs among a large sample of social media users in India.

Through our four papers, we establish a rich body of literature characterizing the nature and effects of misinformation as well as potential solutions to the problem. The papers assembled for this panel use original survey and experimental data to examine the role of misinformation in three countries: Mexico, Brazil, and India. Collectively, our analyses weave a story of the unique problems associated with misinformation in developing contexts, and hope to spark a chain of future research on this understudied and important topic.

Sub Unit

• Division 38: Political Communication

Individual Presentations

• Explaining Dysfunctional Information Sharing on WhatsApp and Facebook in Brazil - Patricia Rossini, University of Liverpool; Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Syracuse University; VANESSA VEIGA DE OLIVEIRA, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG - Brazil); ERICA ANITA BAPTISTA, Federal University of Minas Gerais

• Misinformation & Educative Interventions: Experimental Evidence from India - Sumitra Badrinathan, University of Oxford

• "I Don't Think That's True, Bro!" An Experiment on Fact-checking Rumors in India - Simon Chauchard, Leiden University; D.J. Flynn, IE University; Sumitra Badrinathan, University of Oxford

Chair

• Simon Chauchard Leiden University

Discussant

• Brendan Nyhan Dartmouth College