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The purpose of this paper is to provide a general overview of how the major social media companies are addressing the problem of fake news and the spread of digital disinformation. The fight against bad sources and false authorities is one that librarians have been engaged in for a very long time.

While the inaccurate information may not always have been called “fake news,” misinformation, propaganda, conspiracy, exaggeration, manipulated facts and out and out lies have always been combated by librarians through information literacy. It is nearly impossible to go a day in this current news climate without reading or hearing the term “fake news”; whether it is being tweeted by the 45th president of the USA, discussed in the media, detailed in articles about social media or addressed by librarians in literature, conversation, conferences, tweets and blog posts.

The inescapable phrase was named word of the year for 2017 by both the American Dialect Society (“Fake News,” 2018) and Collins Dictionary (Meza, 2017). While the official definitions provided by a number of different sources may vary, the gist of what is meant by fake news is that it is information that is largely inaccurate, misleading, unsubstantiated, manipulated or completely fabricated that is being passed off as truthful, authoritative and accurate.

Though the phrase “fake news” may seem to be a recent term, it has actually been around since the end of the nineteenth century and it is not limited to just discussing political news according to Merriam-Webster.

The insidious proliferation of online misinformation represents a significant societal problem. With a wealth of research dedicated to the topic, it is still unclear what determines fake news sharing. This paper comparatively examines fake and accurate news sharing in a novel experimental setting that manipulates news about terrorism.

The authors follow an extended version of the uses-and-gratification framework for news sharing, complemented by variables commonly employed in fake news rebuttal studies.

Logistic regression and classification trees revealed worry about the topic, media literacy, information-seeking and conservatism as significant predictors of willingness to share news online. No significant association was found for general analytical thinking, journalism skepticism, conspiracy ideation, uses-and-gratification motives or pass-time coping strategies.

The current results broaden and expand the literature examining beliefs in and sharing of misinformation, highlighting the role of media literacy in protecting the public against the spread of fake news.

This is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first study to integrate a breadth of theoretically and empirically driven predictors of fake news sharing within a single experimental framework.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2022-0693

This paper aims to conduct an interdisciplinary systematic literature review (SLR) of fake news research and to advance the socio-technical understanding of digital information practices and platforms in business and management studies.

The paper applies a focused, SLR method to analyze articles on fake news in business and management journals from 2010 to 2020.

The paper analyzes the definition, theoretical frameworks, methods and research gaps of fake news in the business and management domains. It also identifies some promising research opportunities for future scholars.

The paper offers practical implications for various stakeholders who are affected by or involved in fake news dissemination, such as brands, consumers and policymakers. It provides recommendations to cope with the challenges and risks of fake news.

The paper discusses the social consequences and future threats of fake news, especially in relation to social networking and social media. It calls for more awareness and responsibility from online communities to prevent and combat fake news.

The paper contributes to the literature on information management by showing the importance and consequences of fake news sharing for societies. It is among the frontier systematic reviews in the field that covers studies from different disciplines and focuses on business and management studies.

This paper aims to explore the determinants causing fake information proliferation on social media platforms and the challenges to control the diffusion of fake news phenomena.

The authors applied the systematic review methodology to conduct a synthetic analysis of 37 articles published in peer-reviewed journals retrieved from 13 scholarly databases.

The findings of the study displayed that dissatisfaction, behavior modifications, trending practices to viral fake stories, natural inclination toward negativity and political purposes were the key determinants that led individuals to believe in fake news shared on digital media. The study also identified challenges being faced by people to control the spread of fake news on social networking websites. Key challenges included individual autonomy, the fast-paced social media ecosystem, fake accounts on social media, cutting-edge technologies, disparities and lack of media literacy.

The study has theoretical contributions through valuable addition to the body of existing literature and practical implications for policymakers to construct such policies that might prove successful antidote to stop the fake news cancer spreading everywhere via digital media. The study has also offered a framework to stop the diffusion of fake news.

The broader analytical framing of systematically distorted communication (SDC) helps extract value out of the enormous amount of scholarship on fake news.

The massive literature on fake news has been the subject of handbook overviews, systematic literature reviews, summaries, taxonomies, citation studies and so on. Deploying these tools, the approaches that the literature takes can be characterized, Habermas' concept of systematically distorted communication (SDC) will then be presented in its context, reviewed and put to work to frame fake news research to tell us new things that individual pieces of specific analysis and research do not. Conclusions will be offered from this analysis.

Fake news research has become repetitive, revolving around themes such as the fate of journalism, the role of technology, remediating its effects and deep dives into definitional components (disinformation, misinformation, lies and so on). A broader framing of systematically distorted communication allows us to arrive at some conclusions about contemporary fake news: that it is a power strategy with a particular right-wing slant and it creates a sociology – that is, its own interpretive environment – hostile to democratic functioning. It answers the question: what is fake news for?

A perspective on fake news research is much needed and Habermas' concept is a useful framing mechanism for the large corpus of research. Systematically distorted communication asks – and answers – different questions of the research. Meanwhile, SDC itself is modified by its application to fake news research and contemporary conditions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the respondents’ evaluation of the pervasiveness of fake news through various SM platforms in Kuwait. The authors also examined the respondents’ attitudes toward most fake news on SM. A total of 1,539 Kuwaitis were selected.

The questionnaire was the major tool for this study. The respondents, from whom demographic information was obtained, were asked about which SM platforms most frequently spread fake news, their attitudes toward the subjects most frequently involved in spreading fake news, their degree of use of the six SM platforms and interest in various subjects, and the attitudes toward the negative nature of SM news. SPSS was used for the data analysis.

The results showed that WhatsApp was the most likely to be used to disseminate fake news; Twitter and Instagram ranked second. The younger subjects were affected more by text and voice clips than the older ones.

The study, hopefully, produces new knowledge on the subject of fake news in social media, especially in the Arab world, since there are few studies conducted in the region. The study showed that WhatsApp was the SM tool most likely to be responsible for disseminating fake news in Kuwait, which may shed light on the usage of this application to be a news tool, rather than merely an interpersonal communication medium.

The pandemic has enhanced the global phenomenon of disinformation. This paper aims to study the false news concerning COVID-19, spread through social media in Spain, by using the LatamChequea database for a duration from 01/22/2020, when the first false information has been detected, up to 03/09/2021.

A quantitative analysis has been conducted with regard to the correlation between fake news stories and the pandemic state, the motive to share them, their dissemination in other countries and the effectiveness of fact checking. This study is complemented by a qualitative method: a focus group conducted with representatives of different groups within the society.

Fake news has been primarily disseminated through several social networks at the same time, with two peaks taking place in over a half of the said false stories. The first took place from March to April of 2020 during complete lockdown, and we were informed of prevention measures, the country’s situation and the origin of the virus, whereas the second was related to news revolving around the coming vaccines, which occurred between October and November. The audience tends to neither cross-check the information received nor report fake news to competent authorities, and fact-checking methods fail to stop their spread. Further awareness and digital literacy campaigns are thus required in addition to more involvement from governments and technological platforms.

The main limitation of the research is the fact that it was only possible to conduct a focus group of five individuals who do not belong to generation Z due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, although a clear contribution to the analysis of the impact of fake news on social networks during the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain can be seen from the privileged experiences in each of the fields of work that were identified. In this sense, the results of the study are not generalizable to a larger population. On the other hand, and with a view to future research, it would be advisable to carry out a more specific study of how fake news affects generation Z.

This research is original in nature, and the findings of this study are valuable for business practitioners and scholars, brand marketers, social media platform owners, opinion leaders and policymakers.

Fake news on social media about COVID-19 pandemic and its associated issues (e.g. lockdown) caused public panic that lead to supply chain (SC) disruptions, which eventually affect firm performance. The purpose of this study is to understand how social media fake news effects firm performance, and how to mitigate such effects.

Grounded on dynamic capability view (DCV), this study suggests that social media fake news effects firm performance via SC disruption (SCD) and SC resilience (SCR). Moreover, the relation between SCD and SCR is contingent upon SC learning (SCL) – a moderated mediation effect. To validate this complex model, the authors suggest effectiveness of using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Using an online survey, the results support the authors’ hypotheses.

The results suggest that social media fake news does not affect firm performance directly. However, the authors’ serial mediation test confirms that SCD and SCR sequentially mediate the relationship between social media fake news and firm performance. In addition, a moderated serial mediation test confirms that a higher level of SCL strengthens the SCD–SCR relationship.

This work offers a new theoretical and managerial perspective to understand the effect of fake news on firm performance, in the context of crises, e.g. COVID-19. In addition, this study offers the advancement of PLS as more robust for real-world applications and more advantageous when models are complex.

Prior studies in the SC and marketing domain suggest different effects of social media fake news on consumer behavior (e.g. panic buying) and SCD, respectively. This current study is a unique effort that investigates the ultimate effect of fake news on firm performance with complex causal relationships via SCD, SCR and SCL.

This paper aims to unify fragmented definitions of fake news and also present a comprehensive classification of the concept. Additionally, it provides an agenda for future marketing research based on the findings.

A review of 36 articles investigating fake news from 1990 to 2020 was done. In total, 615 papers were found, and the article pool was refined manually in two steps; first, articles were skimmed and scanned for nonrelated articles; second, the pool was refined based on the scope of the research.

The review resulted in a new definition and a collective classification of fake news. Also, the feature of each type of fake news, such as facticity, intention, harm and humor, is examined as well, and a definition for each type is presented.

This extensive study, to the best of the author’s knowledge, for the first time, reviews major definitions and classification on fake news.

Este artículo pretende unificar las definiciones fragmentadas de las noticias falsas y también presentar una clasificación exhaustiva del concepto. Además, ofrece una agenda para futuras investigaciones de marketing basada en los resultados.

Se realizó una revisión de 36 artículos que investigaban las noticias falsas desde 1990 hasta 2020. Se encontraron 615 artículos, y el grupo de artículos se refinó manualmente en dos pasos, primero, se descremaron los artículos y se escanearon los artículos no relacionados, segundo, el grupo se refinó basado en el alcance de la investigación.

La revisión dio como resultado una nueva definición y una clasificación colectiva de las noticias falsas. Además, se examinan las características de cada tipo de noticias falsas, como la facticidad, la intención, el daño y el humor, y se presenta una definición para cada tipo.

este amplio estudio revisa por primera vez las principales definiciones y la clasificación de las noticias falsas.

本文旨在统一假新闻的零散定义, 并对假新闻的概念进行全面的分类。此外, 它还根据本文的研究结果为未来的营销研究提供了一个议程。

对1990年至2020年期间调查假新闻的36篇文章进行了回顾。一共发现了615篇论文, 并分为两步对此文章库进行了人工提炼：首先, 对文章进行略读和扫描以找出非相关文章, 其次, 根据研究范围对文章库进行了提炼。

此次审查导致了对假新闻的新定义和集体分类。此外, 还分析了假新闻的真实性、意图、危害性、幽默性等各种类型的特征, 并给出了各种类型的定义。

此项涉及广泛假新闻内容的研究首次回顾了关于假新闻的主要定义和分类。