Do Tabloids Poison The Well of Social

Media? Explaining Democratically

Dysfunctional News Sharing [1]
Andrew Chadwick, Cristian Vaccari, Ben O’Loughlin

Presented By: M. Talha Uyar

Outline
 Background Information
 Research Questions
 Methodology
 Results and Discussion
 Conclusion
 References
Background Information
 What is Disinformation?
 Disinformation denotes information that
is deliberately false or misleading, while
misinformation is unintentionally
inaccurate [2].
Background Information
 How can we prove intent?
 Statistical analysis of news sources [3]
 Social Bots [4]
 State Sponsored Disinformation [5]
Who shares this and why?
Research Questions

 What motivations for sharing news on social media predict users’

democratically-dysfunctional news sharing?

 What motivations for sharing news on social media predict being

challenged by others for having engaged in democratically-dysfunctional
news sharing?
Research Questions

 What relationship is there between levels of agreement and disagreement

in users’ online networks and their engagement in democratically-
dysfunctional news sharing?

 What relationship is there between levels of agreement and disagreement

in users’ online networks and their being challenged for having engaged in
democratically-dysfunctional news sharing?
Hypothesis

 The more that users share tabloid news on social media,

 the more likely they are to engage in democratically dysfunctional news
sharing (H1a)
 be challenged by users in their social media networks for doing so (H1b).
Methodology
 Monitored Daily Mail, the Sun, Daily Mirror,
Daily Express, and Daily Star.
 Identified
 19,248 users who have tweeted at least one
tabloid news
 20,391 users who are following a tabloid but not
tweeted
 1,313 users are participated in a survey (3.6%)
 Survey results are analyzed statistically
Results & Discussion
Results & Discussion
Results & Discussion
Conclusion
 Significant correlation between sharing tabloid news
stories’ and reporting dysfunctional news sharing.

 Entertaining/trolling and debating are positively

correlated with dysfunctional news sharing and
persuading/informing is negatively correlated
Conclusion
 Agreement and disagreement in social media networks do
not predict whether a user will engage in dysfunctional
news sharing.

 However, it plays a role in correcting dysfunctional

behavior when it occurs.
Conclusion
 There is no correlation between the news types
respondents shared and the likelihood of being challenged
by others.

 It is more than likely that the dysfunctional news sharing

behavior goes unchallenged.
References
[1] Chadwick, A., Vaccari, C. and O'Loughlin, B., 2018. Do tabloids poison the well
of social media? Explaining democratically dysfunctional news sharing. New
Media and Society, 20 (11), pp.4255-4274.
[2] Jack, C. (2017). “Lexicon of Lies: Terms for Problematic Information.” Data &
Society Research Institute. Retrieved from
https://datasociety.net/output/lexicon-of-lies/
[3] Shin, J., L.Jian, D.Kevin, and F.Bar. 2018. “The Diffusion of Misinformation on
Social Media: Temporal Pattern, Message, and Source.” Computers in Human
Behavior 83:278–287. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.02.008.
[4] Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 2016
Election. Journal Of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211-236.
[5] Samantha Bradshaw and Philip N. Howard, “Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A
Global Inventory of Social Media Manipulation,” Computational Propaganda
Project Working Paper (2017).
Q&A