LCDI

The exponential development of Internet and the increasingly massive use of social networks have weakened the media’s role as regulator of the information market. While the quality of information is a crucial element of the democratic debate, many unreliable information contents have appeared in this new online ecosystem that allows them to bypass the regulation operated by the media. In this context of information disorder, fake news - false information masquerading as online press content but which does not comply with the criteria of journalistic ethics - was particularly apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic. Fake news is also used as a propaganda instrument because it weakens social cohesion by spreading polemical and polarizing information. This leads to a deterioration in the quality of the debate by blurring the line between what is true and what is false. To address this challenge, this project proposes a solution focused on the psychological processes involved in the diffusion of fake news. This approach allows the deployment of preventive interventions to encourage users of social networks to share reliable and good quality content. This project proposes to analyze the processes involved in online information processing that lead to the decision to spread fake news. By improving our understanding of the emotional, cognitive, and motivational mechanisms that lead individuals to share fake news, our goal is to decrease their propagation by influencing the behavior of Internet users. This research program is structured into three tasks. In Task 1, we will analyze the contribution of informational characteristics on attentional mechanisms and their impact on the virality of fake news. We predict a differential attentional processing according to the informational characteristics contained in fake news. We also predict that it is possible to redirect attentional mechanisms towards higher quality information. In Task 2, we will study the impact of motivations on the selection and sharing of fake news. We predict that motivations related to group defense and the need to differentiate oneself from others lead to an increase in the likelihood of spreading fake news. Conversely, the need to protect one's reputation and the search for accurate content lead to a decrease in the probability of sharing fake news. Task 3 will apply the results obtained in the first two tasks. We will implement three solutions targeting the psychological processes studied to influence the behavior of Internet users and lead them to spread less fake news. We will propose an intervention targeting attentional processes to help individuals to redirect their attention towards quality information. The second intervention will focus on reinforcing the accuracy motivation to decrease the willingness to spread fake news. The third intervention will aim at strengthening the critical thinking skills of individuals to help them better discriminate between fake news and quality content. This work is therefore a new way to tackle online disinformation by focusing on preventive methods.