Fake news: the impact of disinformation to the insight of millennials on social media in contemporary issues about society and politics

Abstract

This study is entitled Fake News: The Impact of Disinformation to the Insight of Millennial on social media in Contemporary Issues about Society and Politics, which aims to showcase the knowledge and experiences of different media practitioners facing the rise of fake news and misleading narratives. An in-depth interview (IDI) and focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted on 14 students, seven in-depth interviews, and the remaining is for focus group discussion. All respondents are bonafide students from the University of Mindanao Tagum College and residents in Tagum City, Davao del Norte, who have social media accounts. We collected data through stratified sampling, as the population is divided into sub-groups who share similar characteristics. The participants were able to convey their insights, and the data collected was carefully analyzed with the help of the data analyst. The emerging themes of why millennials believe the news posted on social media in Contemporary issues about society and politics are Social media as the news source, Common social media platforms to get news, Technology on the fast-facing spread of news, and being obsessed on social media. As perceived by the research participants, the kind of news in contemporary issues about Society and Politics will millennials are attracted to are the news about the president, International, National or Local news, educational news nowadays, news about politics, and lastly, news on Covid-19. The emerging themes for fake news in Social Media in Contemporary issues about society and politics that affect millennials' insights are the Vulnerability on Social Media, facing judgment and bashing through fake news, checking the news's reliability, and Fact-checking Finding accurate sources. The study's findings showed the impact of disinformation on the insights of the people on social particularly the millennials, through the change of their perspective towards a person or organization that has been involved in the circulated news. It is essential to be vigilant about the news that people receive to avoid believing fake news and to be able to acquire the correct information as it is significant to the people who are in the news industries and to everyone with or without social media.