Fake-Y Tales: A Quantitative Study on the Commonly-Used Strategies of Senior High School Students in Identifying Fake News in Social Media

Abstract

Today, individuals utilize social media to access news. Thus, traditional media are not as preferred as before, according to Rajendran and Thesinghraja in The Impact of New Media to Traditional Media, 52% of the populations use the traditional media while 44% prefers it. Social media became one of the sources of news, including fake news in the Philippines wherein 87.3% Filipinos trust social media, while 73.4%, trust traditional media according to the Philippine Trust Index (PTI). Merriam Webster defined fake news as misleading news reports have done intentionally. On June 21, 2017, Senator Joel Villanueva filed the Anti-Fake News Act of 2017. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions recommended several strategies in identifying fake news. A descriptive design was selected, which details the phenomenon of the prevalence of fake news. Through it, the problem of the spreading of fake news is discussed, and the common strategies used by the respondents will describe how people detect fake news. The study focused on gathering data within St. Mary’s College, Quezon City (SMCQC) and was selected for the convenience of the area. Hence, the respondents in the study are the Senior High School (SHS) students of SMCQC and a professional that is knowledgeable on the use of media, with 100% of the population completing the survey. Statistical tests were used for the items in the survey forms. Through these, the data acquired is ensured to be comprehensive for it helps in analyzing the data gathered encoded in MS Excel, and after doing frequency counts of the answers of the respondents which are in percentages. The social media site that the SHS used in the past four weeks was mostly Facebook (97.37%) wherein fake news is most observed as well (90.53%). None are incapable of identifying fake news, 37.89% are quite capable, and 75.79% said that the most common strategy is connecting different posts from other social media sites. 37.89% are aware of the bill, excluding the regulations, while 15.26% have total awareness of the bill. Facebook is a commonly used social media site, where fake news is most observed. None of the respondents were incapable of identifying fake news. Most are quite capable, using the most common strategy –connecting posts from social media networks. Most are aware of the bill, but not the regulations. The SHS students and users of social media must use different strategies and study the details about the bill. The legislators to strengthen and promote the bill. The app developers to filter the information posted on applications systematically. The future researchers to go in-depth with other aspects of fake news.