Fake News: Susceptibility, Awareness and Solutions

Tiziana Assenza, Alberto Cardaci () and Stefanie Huber
Additional contact information
Alberto Cardaci: Goethe University, Frankfurt. E-mail: albertocardaci@gmail.com

No 290, ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany

Abstract: This paper investigates and quantifies citizens’ susceptibility to fake news and assesses, using a randomized control trial, the effectiveness of a policy intervention to raise awareness. We find that the average citizen lacks proficiency in identifying fake news and harbors an inflated perception of his/her ability to differentiate between true and fake news content. Increasing awareness by providing information about personal susceptibility to fall for fake news causally adjusts individuals’ beliefs about their fake news detection ability. Most importantly, we show that the simple intervention of informing citizens about their personal susceptibility to fall for fake news causally increases their willingness to pay for the fact-checking service.

Keywords: Fake news; misinformation; disinformation; fact checking; information provision experiments; belief updating; willingness to pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 D83 D84 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50
Date: 2024-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-exp and nep-inv
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https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_290_2024.pdf First version, 2024 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Fake News: Susceptibility, Awareness, and Solutions (2024)
Working Paper: Fake News: Susceptibility, Awareness and Solutions (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:290

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