Munoz 1

Alex Munoz
Professor Guenzel
ENC 1102
22 February 2019
Research Dossier
Introduction

In 2016, it was estimated that 77% of Americans had at least one social media profile.

With the sheer volume of people who find social media creeping into their everyday lives, more

Americans are also getting some of their news online. Last year alone, 68% of Americans

reported having gotten news from social media, with Facebook being the largest source.

Unfortunately, with this increasing trend, another presents itself: The increasing spread of

misinformation online, and so called “fake news”. Especially in the 2016 election, the amount of

fake news produced rose dramatically, leading to an increase in political polarization and “echo

chambers” online. After seeing and experiencing this myself, I had one question that bugged me

the most – Why is misinformation shared online? Those who willfully and deliberately attempt

to spread fake news in order to sow discord is quite small. If that’s the case, then how can an

insignificant number of people pump out false articles and stories, and have that information

reach a large amount of social media users? Those without malicious intent to spread

misinformation end up sharing these types of articles anyways, and the research I am doing for

this project is to find out why exactly this occurs, along with other factors in why shared

misinformation has become as common as it has.

Some of the first sources I investigated for the beginning of my research was Wikipedia.

It had several pages on fake news, disinformation, and misinformation. The pages on fake news

and disinformation were especially helpful. They helped me to properly define and understand
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the history of fake news and its basis, up to the point it has progressed to today. Fake news

stretches back to ancient and medieval times, and there were examples shown in both world

wars. Some of my less broad background sources were journal articles, blog postings, and

magazine publishings where the recent increase (the last decade or so) in fake news and shared

misinformation is covered. After the 2008 elections, there was a spike in the production of fake

news and disinformation, with the majority of it coming to a head around the time of the 2016

presidential election. Most of my sources assist with my evidence and future analysis, since they

cover most of the ground related to the 2016 elections and why users, specifically on social

media, share misinformation.

I would say that I have run into a bit of an obstacle, and that is finding research that

supports different perspectives for the Rogerian mode of argument. At first, I was going to

examine the topic through the different lenses of different political ideologies. However, most of

the studies and articles I’ve sourced are neutral politically, so my original plan of attempting to

look at the issues from those different perspectives may have to be changed. Instead, I’m

thinking I could possibly look at the issue from different types of users, perhaps as someone who

intends to spread disinformation, another who wishes to reduce that spread, and also as a person

who is neutral on the subject.

Research Map

Research Question: Why is misinformation shared online?

Internet / Library Research:

6 sources from the Library

9 sources from the Internet

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Keywords: “Fake News” “Social Media” “Misinformation”

Timetable:

March

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2
Reading
Response
14

3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Final Draft Reading Test 3 Test 2 Spring
Research Response (Chem) (Trig) Break
Dossier 16 Starts
(Trip)

10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Spring
Break Trip
Ends

17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Reading Reading Reading
Response Response Response
17 18 19

24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Workshop Peer-
Draft Review
Rhetorical Workshop
Analysis 2

31
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April
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6
Pitch your Final Draft Test 4
Ted Talk Rhetorical (Chem)
Analysis

7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Workshop Peer-Review
Draft 1 Workshop
Research Draft 1
Paper Research
Paper

Test 3 (Trig)

14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Workshop Workshop Final Draft
Draft 2 Draft 3 Argumentative
Research Research Research
Paper Paper Paper

Ted Student
Lounge

21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Workshop Extra Credit Final Course
Draft Self- Opportunity Exam Evaluations
Assessment - Writing (Chem)
/Reflection

Peer-
Review
Workshop
Draft Self-
Assessment
/Reflection

28 29 30
Ted Talks
E-Portfolios
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Annotated Bibliography

“Analyzing the Digital Traces of Political Manipulation: The 2016 Russian Interference Twitter
Campaign.” 2018 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks
Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining
(ASONAM), 2018 IEEE/ACM International Conference On, 2018, p. 258. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1109/ASONAM.2018.8508646.
Content: This study is a wide-ranging look into the Twitter posts made around the time of the
2016 US presidential elections. The data the study analyzes consists of over 43 million elections-
related postings, with 5.7 million distinct users examined.
Author(s):
Adam Badawy: Department of Political Science & USC Information Sciences Institute
Emilio Ferrara: USC Information Sciences Institute
Kristina Lerman: USC Information Sciences Institute
BEAM: This source allows insight into the broad instances of users on social media (Twitter
specifically) deliberately sharing fake news/misinformation and also shows the political
inclinations of other users who consume that misinformation.

“Why Students Share Misinformation on Social Media: Motivation, Gender, and Study-Level
Differences.” Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 41, no. 5, Sept. 2015, pp. 583–592.
EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2015.07.003.
Content: For this study, the authors surveyed students at a Singaporean University on their
reasons for sharing misinformation on social media.
Author(s):
Xinran Chen: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang
Technological University
Sei-Ching Joanna Sin: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang
Technological University
Yin-Leng Theng: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang
Technological University
Chei Sian Lee: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang
Technological University
 Munoz 6

BEAM: This study is a look into the social motivations behind why social media users in college
forward misinformation. It also examines the difference in reasons between genders and years in
college.
Howard, Philip N., et al. Social Media, News and Political Information during the US Election:
Was Polarizing Content Concentrated in Swing States? 2018. EBSCOhost,
login.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/login?auth=shibb&url=https://search-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsarx&AN=edsarx.1802.03573&si
te=eds-live&scope=site.
Content: This data memo examines sources of political news and information over 10 days
during the 2016 US presidential election, and merged the data using self-reported location data
on Twitter, in order to find out what states shared misinformation were shared in the most.
Author(s):
Philip N. Howard: Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University
Bence Kollanyi: Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University
Samantha Bradshaw: Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University
Lisa-Maria Neudert: Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University
BEAM: This study shows further insight into the background of users who share
misinformation, and where they may hail from. It also points to some trends on which states are
more likely to share polarizing information.

Wikipedia contributors. "Fake news." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia, 1 Mar. 2019. Web. 2 Mar. 2019.
Content: This online encyclopedia article gives a general overview on Fake News: its definition,
history, how to identify it, breakdown by country and much more.
Author(s): Various - Wikipedia Contributors
BEAM: Fake News is quite relevant to my research as a main topic, so this article provides me
with a great understanding and contextualization of fake news.

Wikipedia contributors. "Disinformation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The

Free Encyclopedia, 24 Feb. 2019. Web. 2 Mar. 2019.
Content: This online encyclopedia article gives a general overview on the topic of
Disinformation: The usage of the word, brief examples of its history, and other tidbits about it.
Author(s): Various - Wikipedia Contributors
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BEAM: Disinformation is relevant to my main topic of research and is basically an offshoot of

misinformation. The article here lets me gain a better understanding around false information in
general.

Wikipedia contributors. "Misinformation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The

Free Encyclopedia, 25 Feb. 2019. Web. 2 Mar. 2019.
Content: This online encyclopedia article gives a general overview on the topic of
Misinformation: The usage of the word, causes of it, some examples in history, and also its role
in social media.
Author(s): Various - Wikipedia Contributors
BEAM: Misinformation shared online is the main topic of my research project, and this
encyclopedia article allows me to gain a more complete understanding of it.

Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016
Election.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 31, no. 2, Spring 2017, pp. 211–
236. EBSCOhost, doi: http://www.aeaweb.org.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/jep/.
Content: This paper is a background with theoretical and empirical data aimed to help frame the
debate of fake news, and how it functions in social media.
Author(s):
Hunt Allcott: Associate Professor of Economics, New York University
Matthew Genztkow: Professor of Economics, Stanford University
BEAM: This paper is quite the treasure trove of information for me, I believe it’s a big help for
me in learning about fake news and its economic motivations.

Benkler, Yochai, et al. “Study: Breitbart-Led Right-Wing Media Ecosystem Altered Broader
Media Agenda.” Columbia Journalism Review, www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-
trump-harvard-study.php.
Content: This article goes in depth into a certain aspect of the 2016 election: far-right news
outlets, and their influence on the mainstream media’s coverage. The study covered in the paper
points out that Breitbart was the driving force behind this.
Author(s): Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, and Ethan Zuckerman
BEAM: This article provides me with information on the hotly debated topic of far-right news
outlets, and their role in the 2016 presidential election.
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Mitchell, Amy, et al. “Many Americans Believe Fake News Is Sowing Confusion.” Pew
Research Center's Journalism Project, Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, 26 Apr.
2018, www.journalism.org/2016/12/15/many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-
confusion/.
Content: The article here covers a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, which is a
non-profit think tank based in Washington D.C. The survey asked Americans on their opinions
on fake news, and its effects on political processes.
Author(s): Amy Mitchell, Michael Barthel, Jesse Holcomb
BEAM: The survey done by Pew Research allows me some insight into the mindset of my
fellow Americans, and I’ll be able to reference the survey in my next papers if I want to make
some amount of assumptions of how people may react in the future.

Guess, Andrew, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua Tucker. "Less than you think: Prevalence and
predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook." Science advances 5.1 (2019):
eaau4586.
Content: In this research article, the authors goal was to study the factors which contributed to
fake news dissemination on Facebook. One of the factors they found was an age correlation, in
that people over age 65 were more likely to share false information news articles over Facebook.
Author(s): Andrew Guess, Jonathan Nagler, Joshua Tucker
BEAM: I’ll definitely be referencing this paper in my future papers in this class, because it
directly looks into factors as to why people share misinformation on social media, more
specifically Facebook.

Grinberg, Nir, et al. "Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 US presidential election." Science
363.6425 (2019): 374-378.
Content: This study looks into sources of fake news on Twitter around the time of the 2016 US
Presidential elections. By analyzing a large amount of Twitter accounts, they were able to
pinpoint specific sources that shared fake news, and how it propagated throughout the Twitter
sphere.
Author(s): Grinberg, Nir
Joseph, Kenneth
Friedland, Lisa
Swire-Thompson, Briony
Lazer, David
BEAM: This study allows me to find correlations between who and what accounts share
misinformation on Twitter.
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“Propagation From Deceptive News Sources Who Shares, How Much, How Evenly, and How
Quickly?” IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, Computational Social
Systems, IEEE Transactions on, IEEE Trans. Comput. Soc. Syst, no. 4, 2018, p. 1071.
EBSCOhost, doi:10.1109/TCSS.2018.2881071.
Content: Another Twitter study, this one analyzes 11 million posts, and examines how fast fake
news and shared misinformation spreads from user to user.
Author(s): Glenski, M.
Weninger, T.
Volkova, S.
BEAM: Studies of this type can give me information I can reference in the future, like saying
“This kind of fake news spread quite fast, especially in regards to (topic)”. I believe its important
to have a strong background on things like this.

Karlova, Natascha A., and Karen E. Fisher. “A Social Diffusion Model of Misinformation and
Disinformation for Understanding Human Information Behaviour.” Information
Research, vol. 18, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 1–12. EBSCOhost,
login.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/login?auth=shibb&url=https://search-ebscohost-
com.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lxh&AN=88007714&site=eds-
live&scope=site.
Content: This study isn’t specifically focused on the 2016 election season, but is aimed at shared
misinformation online in general. Things like fake medical news shared online, or conspiracy
theory-type information.
Author(s):
Karlova, Natascha
Fisher, Karen
BEAM: This study also includes human behavior traits, and how those influence people’s
reasoning to share false information online. Information literacy was related to how well people
could recognize shared misinformation, and how likely they themselves were to share it as well.