Should we truly be scared of fake news?

Results show that the online fake news audience, like most niche content, could be a small subset of the total news audience.

Concern about “fake news” is rampant. Unfortunately, not much is actually know about their impact on their audience’s behavior.  Northwestern University researcher  Jacob Nelson, a PhD candidate in the Media, Technology, and Society program, recently published in New Media & Society a study examining audience data in the months leading up to and following the 2016 presidential election. Their study suggests that the online fake news audience comprises a small, disloyal group of heavy internet users.

Although other studies have shown the fake news audience to be smaller than many assumed, this is the the first to provide a theoretical explanation for why that has been the case.

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