SDCA Journal of Communication and Media Studies

Abstract

Fake news has been spreading in the past years over the internet. Fake news are hoaxes and propaganda aimed to spread disinformation. In the past decade, it has been spreading especially on the internet. This study determined the levels of exposure, knowledge, and engagement of selected Filipino netizens on political fake news articles on Facebook. The researcher conducted a three-day Facebook account monitoring of the respondents as they were given access to the activity log of the participants. Most of the respondents spent two to four hours a day on Facebook and are often exposed to political fake news articles but rarely read the whole article. The respondents displayed a low level of knowledge in identifying fake news when they were shown with such with 40.7% accuracy. Respondents are engaged on political fake news on Facebook with an average of 6.34 activities per respondent per day which are: sharing, reacting, commenting, reacting comment, and replying to comments; 6.91 activities allotted for political fake news with an average of two to four hours a day makes. This study found out that most of the Filipino netizens’ engagement on political news on Facebook does not equate to their knowledge in identifying news, fake or not regardless of their exposure.

Keywords: Political fake news, exposure, knowledge, engagement, Facebook.