Dynamics of Fake News Dissemination: A Case Study in the Indian context

SHUAIB SHAFI & MADHAVI RAVIKUMAR
University of Hyderabad, India

Abstract
The potential to reach out to large mass of people in considerably shorter periods of time, though resulted in acceleration of news production, it also paved way to a sudden boom in circulation of fake news. The attempt made here is to understand the various factors that influence the propagation of fake news. With the assistance of an online quantitative survey, the demographic factors, social media habits, news consumption habits and fake news exposure of 163 people are closely observed to identify any sort of patterns across it. Further, the thematic aspects of the fake news items that are come across by maximum number of respondents are put into discussion, to identify the elements that determine popularity. It concludes with stressing the need to have a more nuanced understanding of online-communities for a comprehensive understanding of ‘fake news dynamics’.

Keywords: Fake news, hoax, social media, viral, online news, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter

References

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Shuaib Shafi is a research scholar in the Department of Communication at S N School of Fine Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. His research work involves documentation and analysis of the growth of new media and online journalism in Indian context. Shafi’s research interests include journalism studies, digital ethnography, film-studies, visual-politics, and digital humanities.
Dr. Madhavi Ravikumar is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at S N School of Fine Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Her research interest has been media studies, development communication and policy studies.