Too good to be true, too good not to share: The social utility of fake news
Duffy, Tandoc and Ling study the effect of fake news on personal relationships, focusing on people who share a story without knowing or suspecting it is false. Sharing news can strengthen social bonds, while sharing a fake story can damage them. Using twelve focus groups, the authors examine how social media users react to fake news and how it affects the relationship between sender and receiver, including how people respond when a story shared to build cohesion turns out to be false.
Duffy, Tandoc and Ling study the effect of fake news on personal relationships, focusing on people who share a story without knowing or suspecting it is false. Sharing news can strengthen social bonds, while sharing a fake story can damage them. Using twelve focus groups, the authors examine how social media users react to fake news and how it affects the relationship between sender and receiver, including how people respond when a story shared to build cohesion turns out to be false.
Written from the abstract, journal and university repository record, 2026-10-31.
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Communication & Society, 23(13), 1965-1979. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2019.1623904 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1623904