Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology

Department of Chemical Engineering

SPREAD OF MISINFORMATION:
AWARENESS OF THE MILLENIAL
STUDENTS IN MANILA ON ONLINE
FAKE NEWS

GROUP 1

MANZANO, Mikaella Gail D.

SALIGUE, Mikho Yves

SISON, Bren A.

YUMUL, Maria Lara Angela B.

 Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

I. INTRODUCTION

Significant fake news stories can be traced back to Octavian's 1st century
campaign of misinformation against Mark Antony and the forged 8th
century Donation of Constantine, which supposedly transferred authority over
Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope. (Kaplan., 2017)
Working out who to trust and who not to believe has been a facet of human life
since our ancestors began living in complex societies, but the difference today is
how we get our information.

Fake news is the term for news stories that are publicly advertised as true
but are actually used for purposes such as being comical, attracting attention to
a certain company or, in some cases, for propaganda to make people believe false
information. (Vicarioa, et al.) Stories can vary in public effect and could possibly
cause panic, depending on the severity of the fake information.

Social media platforms provide a megaphone to anyone who can attract

followers. Ironically, the accessibility of social media has diversified and
democratized media creation. Because anyone can create a blog, post a YouTube
video or send out a tweet, and established media outlets no longer have a lock on
creating or distributing the news, this new power structure enables small
numbers of individuals, armed with technical, social or political know-how, to
distribute large volumes of misinformation, or fake news. Misinformation on
social media is particularly potent and dangerous for two reasons: an abundance
of sources and the creation of echo chambers. Assessing the credibility of
information on social media is increasingly challenging due to the proliferation
of information sources, aggravated by the unreliable social cues that accompany
this information. (Vicarioa, et al.)
 Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The spread of misinformation is especially important in the context of

breaking news, where new pieces of information are released piecemeal, often
starting off as unverified information in the form of a rumor. These rumors then
spread to large numbers of users, influencing perception and understanding of
events, despite being unverified. With the increasing usage of social media sites,
these stories can be easily viewed and shared between multiple people at once.
This becomes an increasing problem amongst readers as they don't necessarily
know any better than to believe what they see online. Many stories can be quite
easily distinguished as fake, whilst others can seem just like any other real news
story, which leads us to question how do people know when they are reading
fake news and how can we protect people from fake news.

Most of us do not witness news events first hand, nor do we have direct
exposure to the workings of politics. Instead, we rely on accounts of others; much
of what we claim to know is actually distributed knowledge that has been
acquired, stored, and transmitted by others. Likewise, much of our decision-
making stems not from individual rationality but from shared group-level
narratives. As a result, our receptivity to information and misinformation
depends less than we might expect on rational evaluation and more on the
heuristics and social processes. It is important that people are aware of fake
news stories and how to prevent themselves from believing the fabricated
information that they are fed.

Social media rumors that are later proven false can have harmful consequences
both for individuals and for society. For instance, a rumor in 2013 about the
White House having been bombed, injuring Barack Obama, which was tweeted
from APs Twitter account by hackers, spooked stock markets in the US. Fake
news doesn't just cause much confusion online. Its effects could also spill over
 Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

to the real world, such as what some believe about the following examples
(Rappler, 2016):

1. One of the biggest fake stories that went viral during the 2016 elections
was 'Pizzagate.' This refers to a conspiracy theory that originated from a
Reddit post about a Washington pizzeria that was rumored to be a front
for a politically connected pedophile ring.
This made the owner the target of much public hate and even death
threats. In a climactic turn of events, one man went to the establishment
and fired a rifle, demanding that the alleged illegal underground
operations be ceased. The claims made in relation to this theory have never
been proven true.
2. Last November of 2016, a fake story began circulating on social media
claiming that the Australian embassy announced that Philippine passport
holders would soon enjoy visa-free travel to their country. The Australian
embassy in the Philippines warned against this fake news article, saying,
"This is a scam, and potential travelers to Australia must have a valid
Australian visa."
3. A February 2017 article claims that the Big One will hit the Philippines
and several other countries within a two-week window. This was
considered a hoax as
no one can really predict when an earthquake will hit, however, it is best
to always be prepared.

There's no denying that fake news has become part of people's social media lives
a potentially dangerous part. Every day, more fake news sites pop out of the
woodwork and, every day, more fake news stories are spread online. It has
become even more important for people to learn how to identify fact from fiction,
and to be more careful with the stuff they share on social media.
 Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

OBJECTIVES

GENERAL OBJECTIVE:

To determine the percentage awareness of millennial students in manila

on identifying fake news from the real ones

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE:

To identify the causes of receptivity and reliability of millennial students

in manila to information and misinformation as well as its different
impacts in the society

To perform a quantitative analysis of rumours in social media on how they

are spread, especially on how millennial students in manila support or
deny them through survey and interviews

To construct necessary tips for identify fake news to encourage a culture

that values and promotes truth

ASSUMPTION

Source credibility profoundly affects the social interpretation of

information (Metzger et al., 2010) Individuals trust information coming from
well-known or familiar sources and from sources that align with their worldview.
In addition, Individuals tend to accept new information uncritically when a
source is perceived as credible or the information confirms prior views. And when
the information is unfamiliar or comes from an opposition source, it may be
 Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

ignored. Moreover, correcting misinformation does not necessarily change

peoples beliefs (Flynn et al., 2016). In fact, presenting people with challenging
information can even backfire, further entrenching people in their initial beliefs.
However, even when an individual believes the correction, the misinformation
may persist. An important implication of this point is that any repetition of
misinformation, even in the context of refuting it, can be harmful. This
persistence is due to familiarity and fluency biases in our cognitive processing:
the more an individual hears a story, the more familiar it becomes, and the more
likely the individual is to believe it as true. As a result, exposure to
misinformation can have long-term effects, while corrections may be short-lived.

HYPOTHESIS

Previous research shows that social media have become popular for rapid
information exchange between members of the online community after crisis
events. This study focuses on the awareness of students to a crisis on
information sharing behaviors. Misinformation can be very difficult to correct
and may have lasting effects even after it is discredited. One reason for this
persistence is the manner in which people make causal inferences based on
available information about a given event or outcome. As a result, false
information may continue to influence beliefs and attitudes even after being
debunked if it is not replaced by an alternate causal explanation. A growing body
of research provides evidence that fake news was prevalent in the political
discourse. This suggest that some of the most widely shared stories on social
media were fake and other findings show that the total volume of news shared
from incredible and dubious sources is comparable in volume to news coming
from individual mainstream sources.
 Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

REFERENCE

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Alex Kaplan. (2017, March 15). Its Fake News, But Its Impact On People Has
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