“Others are more vulnerable to fake news than I Am”: Third-person effect of COVID-19 fake news on social media users

• Published in: Computers in human behavior Vol. 125; p. 106950
• Main Authors: Yang, Jeongwon, Tian, Yu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2021; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Communication theory; Context; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Digital media; Fake news; News; Outbreaks; Social media; Social networks; Third-person perception; COVID-19; Fake news; Social media; Third-person perception
• ISSN: 0747-5632; 1873-7692; 0747-5632
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2021.106950

Fake news have pervaded the social media landscape during the COVID-19 outbreak. To further explore what contributed to fake news susceptibility of social media users, the research 1) integrated a widely-adopted mass communication theory of third-person perception (TPP) with digital disinformation; 2) examined users’ social media engagement and individual characteristics toward risk as antecedents of TPP; and lastly, 3) tested TPP of fake news under a context of COVID-19 outbreak, an uncertain situation flooded with baseless news and information. An online survey was conducted on 871 respondents via Amazon Mechanical Turk. As a result, we found that in the context of COVID-19, social media engagement 1) directly increased TPP; and 2) indirectly increased TPP via self-efficacy and perceived knowledge. However, negative affect failed to mediate a positive relationship between communal engagement and TPP, as the respondents rated themselves more attentive to fake news than are others. Therefore, the fact that social media directly and indirectly provoked higher TPP implicates that a potential harm of social media is not confined to a rumor mill that propagates false stories, as widely recognized, but can further extend to an echo chamber to cultivate a slanted belief that he or she is fake-news-proof. •Third-person perception (TPP) of COVID-19 fake news susceptibility was prevalent among our respondents.•Communal engagement directly and indirectly increased TPP of COVID-19 fake news, mediated by perceived knowledge and self-efficacy.•Although communal engagement increased negative emotion towards COVID-19, this did not increase TPP.