"Misled" Or "Misleading"? Exploring The Factual And Motivational Factors Of Fake News Propagation

According to the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability(MOA)theory,which explains the process of the individual’s information processing,a specific behavior is not only affected by external opportunity,but also by one’s internal motivation and ability.According to MOA theory,motivation is a direct factor that affects the individual’s behavior,with ability and opportunity modulating and modifying the behavior.However,in the existing research,fake news propagation is mainly attributed to the audience’s misbelief under the uncertain situation,and the existing methods of combating fake news also fucus on how to improve the audience’s ability to recognize fake news and how to provide them with more external opportunities.However,the individual’s self-motivation is neglected.Do individuals share fake news due to mistakenly believing in it?Or do individuals share fake news with personal intentions consistent with the theme of that fake news?When the revealed facts violate the original intention of the disseminator,is he or she willing to correct the previous forwarding behavior?This research applied the MOA theoretical framework to an in-depth analysis of two real fake news cases-a piece of fake news on Twitter released by an American engineer Eric Tucker in 2016 and 5G conspiracy theories during COVID-19.Based on news reports,research literature and other second-hand materials,this research traced the digital traces left by the disseminators on social media,and strove to restore the typical propagation process of real fake news cases,and then inferred the disseminators’personal intention based on their identity characteristics.This analysis found that sufficient self-capacity and external opportunities to recognize false information were not enough to stop the audience to share fake news.The propagation of both fake news were led by disseminators that had a personal intention consistent with the theme of the fake news.When the revealed facts violated their original intention,they did not take the initiative to withdraw their forwarding,but continued to spread more follow-up related fake news.The case study showed that regardless of the facts are vague or clarified,disseminators’ self-motivation is a factor that cannot be ignored for explaining fake news propagation.This found challenge the current presupposition that people share fake news for mistakenly believing in it,and provides a theoretical reference for more comprehensive fake news combating measures.