Media Technologies and Epistemologies: The Platforming of Everything| What Prompts Suspicions About Information Integrity? Motives for Fact-Checking Suspect Content

Abstract

The rise of misinformation in digital news flows has led to a corresponding call for more investigation into the antecedents of news verification—and for improved understanding about who verifies and why. In this study, we conduct a thematic analysis of participants’ open-ended responses (N = 2,345 individual thoughts, volunteered by N = 715 participants) to an online survey prompt to explore epistemological influences on user decisions to verify or not verify information they have reason to believe might be false, when given the opportunity to do so. The analysis identifies 8 themes associated with information verification from user responses and then examines how these epistemological motives vary when examined across individual differences that previous research suggests may be impactful. Specifically, we examine the association of themes with procedural news knowledge, news skepticism, and individual motivations for media use (surveillance vs. entertainment). Results show significant differences in the characteristics of searchers compared with non-searchers.