Debunking “fake news” on social media: Immediate and short-term effects of fact-checking and media literacy interventions

Lara Marie Berger, Anna Kerkhof, Felix Mindl and Johannes Münster

Journal of Public Economics, 2025, vol. 245, issue C

Abstract: We conduct a randomized survey experiment to compare the immediate and short-term effects of fact-checking to a brief media literacy intervention. We show that fact-checking primarily affects the specific fake news it directly addresses, whereas media literacy helps to distinguish between false and correct information more generally, both immediately and around two weeks after the intervention. A plausible mechanism is that media literacy enables participants to critically evaluate social media postings, while fact-checking fails to enhance their skills as much. Our results promote media literacy as an effective tool to fight fake news, that is cheap, scalable, and easy-to-implement.

Keywords: Covid; Environment; Facebook; Fact-checking; Fake news; Media literacy; Misinformation; Nutrition; Social media; Supplements; Survey experiment; Vaccine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L51 L82 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:245:y:2025:i:c:s004727272500043x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105345

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