Understanding the Tendency of Media Users to Consume Fake News

This research investigates the ways in which different groups of media users have different tendencies in consuming and believing fake news. These tendencies are examined through: (1) analysis of association of age and income level with the pattern of media consumption; (2) analysis of association of age and income level with types of media that is perceived as the most trustworthy. Using systematic random sampling, this study examines 400 households in Semarang, Central Java, with level of confidence of 95%.

case of DKI Jakarta Gubernatorial Election, the report noted that fake news were often contain with views expressing hatred and manipulation of religious and racial sentiments. Hence, the sectarian issues became the main material for fabricated news with the intention to influence the outcome of the election.
A survey from the Indonesian Telematics Society or MASTEL (Masyarakat Telematika Indonesia, 2017) to 1.116 respondents, reports that people continuously exposed to fake news in their daily online interactions. Respondents admit that 9,8% of the false news they received were social-political news related to the election of regional leaders and the works of the government. The lies were mostly spread through social media (92,4 %), online conversation apps like Line, WhatsApp, and Telegram (62,8%), websites (34,9%), television (8,7%), print media (5%), email (3,1%), and radio (1,2%).
Thus, online media are increasingly popular in the dissemination of fake news. With its affordances to spread information rapidly and widely in the vast network of users, online media also became the potential tool in spreading vicious, deceptive, and fabricated information.
The problem of fake news becomes consequential when people or media users do not recognize some particular news as fabricated news, and respond to those news as truth. It would have the possibility to lead to the emergence of conflict at various levels and contexts (Karlova & Fisher, 2013;Rojecki & Meraz, 2016;Allcot & Gentzkow, 2017). Thus, it is important to understand what news can be counted as fake news. Allcot and Gentzkow (2017) offer a helpful definition of fake news that differentiates it from verified news. They define fake news as "news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false and could mislead readers" (Allcot & Gentzkow, 2017, p. 213). From this definition, we can see there are at least two elements of fake news: (1) form of fabrication, and (2) contains deception with the intention to mislead readers. Thus, one characteristic of fake news that almost all people agree on is that it has the possibility of misleading others. Fallis (2015, p. 402) also makes a contribution to the identification of inaccurate news content and defines two categories of misleading news or misleading information.
The first category is disinformation, which is information that is deliberately created and distributed in order to deceive others. Most forms of disinformation such as fake news and propaganda are misleading information because the source of information intentionally aims to deceive others. The second category of misleading information, according to Fallis (2015, p. 402), is misinformation, which is information that is incorrect or inaccurate as a result of errors, omissions, and biases.
The categories proposed by Fallis (2015, p. 402) provide distinction of fake news based on the intention of the creator or the disseminator. Disinformation is a deliberate creation of fake news, while misinformation is negligence or accident without a specific purpose. In addition, disinformation and misinformation does not seen from the effects or the result of the information, but from the substance of the information. Disinformation and misinformation are not misleading information only when someone is successfully deceived by that information.

Disinformation
and misinformation are still misleading information based on the substance of information that is not describing the actual situation and containing errors and inaccuracies that deviate from the actual situation.
One of the driving forces that foster the proliferation of false information of fake news is the change in media ecosystem.
The distribution of information is no longer simply in the hands of news media agencies and professional journalists, but it could also be in the hands of various new actors, which made possible by the affordances of information technology. This lead to a situation which is known as hybrid news system, where there is a process of amalgamation between the old and new information channels. The conception of the hybrid news system is proposed by Chadwick (2011Chadwick ( , 2013  Politicians are also quickly adapting to the complexity of information flows. In this hybrid news system, to extent Chadwick (2011Chadwick ( , 2013 arguments, the views of politicians conveyed through their social media accounts have become part of news for mass media. Short opinion pieces from politicians are not uncommon end up to be news, and it could even go further as part of the headlines in various media outlets.
Journalists themselves also use the social media to add comments or personal views which they could not convey via media channels where they work. This kind of opinions could also shape people perception on particular issues. These complex flows of information not only exist in developed countries, such as countries in North America and Europe, but also took place in the context of political news in Indonesia.
Changes not only happen in the way news media agencies produce news.
Changes also manifest in the ways readers or media users consume the news. The practice of sharing or disseminating information from various sources now characterizes information consumption.
The ease of distributing information by copying and pasting information hyperlinks in social media is a common practice in reading news nowadays. News-readers can become news-spreaders. Thus, there is information abundance because readers can also be a source or disseminator of information (Hermida, Fletcher, Korell, & Logan, 2012).
Information abundance that is available in various channels prompts newsreaders to select the information to be consumed and disseminated based on their personal assessment of the quality and truthfulness of the information. According to Giglietto, Iannelli, Rossi, and Valeriani (2016, p. 10 The emergence of alternative media is increasingly becoming reference because it is considered more independent and has no economic interests that must be protected.
But this does not necessarily solve the problem because at the same time there is an emergence of information sources that seems reliable but actually only disseminates information that cannot be justified as truth. This phenomenon raises the amount of information that contradicts each other and requires the reader to digest and to compare information.
In regards to evaluation of news content or story, Giglietto et al. (2016) state that individual tends to believe news that is not in contrary to his/her vision of the world as well as his/her personal beliefs and further reinforces existing beliefs. This is because individual would pay more attention to this kind of information and because it is easier to comprehend (Giglietto et al., 2016, p. 12). This often leads a person to only read and disseminate coherent information with his/her beliefs and worldviews of the world. Therefore, there is a tendency that users who are disseminating information through social media is often based on personal motive to reinforce her/his beliefs and influencing others to have the same belief.
Furthermore, in relation to evaluation of information truthfulness based the context of information, in the current situation that is characterized with 'information overload', Giglietto et al., (2016, p. 10) suggest that people would tend to have limited ability to process the content of information, and less capacity to evaluate whether they would get negative impact or benefit from particular information. This kind of situation is not only take place on the side of media users.
Professional actors, such as journalists, also have possibility to experience information overload that lessen the ability to assess truthfulness of information. In the wake of terrorist attack or natural disaster, media organizations and journalist faced deluge of information in the short amount of time (Giglietto et al., 2016, p. 13 Students also have a low ability to determine sources of tweets and to evaluate the validity of information contained in them. Hence, this study shows although there is a general belief that young generations are fluent in using social media and many internet applications, and that they are relatively savvy in producing and appropriating various digital content, their ability is not equally strong in evaluating the truth value and the credibility of the content.
In short, the proliferation of fake, false, or fabricated news cannot be separated from the complex transformation of information ecosystem. It was driven by the use of information technology and the Internet in news production, distribution, and consumption. The shifting practices of media production by news agencies as well as shifting practices in media consumption by newsreaders or media users make room in production and distribution of unverifiable information.
This study focuses on the side of the newsreaders or media users to see the users' characters who have tendency to consume and distribute fake news, particularly among the media users in Indonesia.
Building on previous studies, this research use age as determinant factor which added with the level of income. This tendency is investigated through the examination of the pattern of news consumptions and the assessment of news channel that is perceived the most trustworthy or most credible. This study will yield media users' profile with propensity of consuming and distributing fake news.

METHOD
This study is part of a broader study that is funded by competitive research grant from Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Diponegoro. This research aims to investigate fake news in three different fronts. This first part is to conduct audience profiling with tendency to consume and distribute fake news based on the pattern of media use and the assessment of news channel/media platform credibility and trustworthiness. The second part is to map out characteristics of false news and to trace the sources that are used to spread the information. The third part is to understand the behavior of audiences in the consumption, production, and reproduction of information through the media. This article presents the result of the first part of the study.
The data used for this study was collected using survey method. The research population is resident in Semarang city who actively use media, both mainstream media (i.e. television, newspapers, magazines, radio) and alternatives media (i.e. social media, weblogs, Youtube, etc.). The sampling technique which used is systematic random sampling by region. The number of respondents of this study is 400 that is determined with a level of confidence 95% and a margin of error of 5%. The determination of the respondents is done through several stages: from the determination of 5 zones (namely North, South, West, East and Central Semarang) to the level of sub-districts (kelurahan), then to the level of sub-kelurahan (RW), and finally to the level of neighborhood (RT).
The data analysis is conducted by using descriptive statistical analysis. By using this analysis, this study can reveal the pattern of media use based on age and level of income. The data is further analyzed to see the perception of media trustworthiness based on age, and level of income of the respondents.

FINDINGS
The result of the survey shows the composition of the respondent based on gender is male (40%) and female (60%). This composition was obtained naturally which means gender composition of the respondents is not predetermine before survey, but it was solely based on the availability of the household member that responded to the surveyors at the time the survey was conducted. Meanwhile, respondents' composition based on age are categorized into seven age groups (as shown in the Figure 1). The largest proportion of the respondents are in the age group of 41-50 years old (23%). Although it is not significantly different compare to respondents in the age group of 31-40 years old (20%) and 21-30 years old (19%). In short, the survey was able to obtain responses from young and adult population in the group of 21-50 years old. The age group of the respondents will be relevant to see the ways in which they use different information channels and different types of media. The age group of respondents will also show different preference of media and their perception of media trustworthiness and credibility.
The survey was able to obtain responses from respondents from different income groups. The largest proportion of the respondents' income start from Rp. 1.000.000 to Rp. 2.000.000 per month reach 45,8% (as shown in Figure 2). Information about this income is related to the respondents' preference and consumption of media to get their information will be explained in the next section.
The inquiry regarding pattern of media consumption uncovers the ways, and through which channel, the respondents obtain their information and how different The majority of the respondents mentioned two types of television watching pattern based on the time spending in watching. First, the group of respondents who spend four hours on average watching television in a day (20%). Second, the group of respondents who spend more than seven hours on average in watching television in a day (21,5%). Large numbers of the respondents also asserted that they have more than one unit of television in their home, for several respondents it is even up to three to four units. The placement of this television can be in living room, family room, and bedroom. This indicates that television has a very close connection with respondents' daily and family life. The fact that some respondents spend seven hours watching television means watching TV is counted one-third of their average daily activities. Among many television channels that can be watched nationally in Indonesia, the top three that is reported as the most frequently watch is Indosiar (20,5%), ANTV (18,3%), and RCTI (15,5%).
The second medium that is become the most used to obtain information is the combination of social media and other online channels (i.e. news portal, website, blogs, etc.). Many respondents mentioned that they use more than one social media in their daily use, even small number of the respondents mentioned that they use five to six social media. These social media can be Facebook, Twitters, Instagram, Path, and a number of mobile chat applications, such as Line, Whatsapp, Telegram, etc. Respondents who use the combination of these two media counted up to 23% of the respondents. As for others respondents, a small group of them mentioned that they used radio (3%) and newspaper (3.3%) as the most consumed media to obtained information and entertainment.
If we look closely to the pattern of consumption based on the age groups, it can be seen that the largest number of respondents who mentioned that television For the other types of conventional media (i.e. radio and newspaper), it is interesting to see that the age group of 15-30 years in the survey no longer use newspaper and radio to access and to get information. There are several possible explanations for the lack of newspaper and radio use, as reveals in this research.
One possible explanation is because media users have to buy or have to pay something to access and read information on the newspaper. With the abundance of information available through online media and television that can be obtained for free (although users have to pay fee for Internet connection, this fee is not necessarily seen as cost to access information/news but also cost for other communication and entertainment purposes), less media users are willing to pay for information they get.
Another possible explanation is related to the less practicality of newspaper to be read compare to online news media or social media that can be read anytime and anywhere through mobile devices.
As for the explanation of the lack of use of the radio, it is possible because a large number of radio channel in Semarang are predominantly contain with entertainment with less proportion of news content (although there are a small number of channel with news specialty).
This situation causes many radio listeners see this medium as merely the source of entertainment, and not the source of news. The perception of media trustworthiness indicates the respondents' level of trust the respondents have that one media channel delivers honest, accurate, and sound information. It also means that they would turn to that particular media in the situation where uncertainties occur. The result of the survey shows that large proportions of respondents asserted television is the most trusted media to deliver information, which accounted for 78,8% of the respondents. Not surprisingly, newspaper also considered as also one of the most trustworthy channel of information (7,8%).

Meanwhile, although relatively large
proportion of media users utilized social media and other online platforms as to access their information, the level of confidence of these channels of information is relatively low. Only 4,5% of the respondents admit that social media is the most trusted source of information and only 5,8% assert that online platforms as the most trusted source of information. The level of confidence of radio is even lower, as the survey result shows only 0,5% of respondents considered radio as the most trustworthy media channel. It is important to note that there is also a group of respondents that have no confidence on either type of media to deliver trustworthy information. They see that television, social media, online platforms, radio, or newspapers cannot be depended on to deliver honest, fair, and accurate information. It can be said that this group of respondents has a fundamental skepticism on mass media.
Regarding the perception of media trustworthiness of different age groups, the survey shows that different age groups of respondents have different confidence level on mass media. As predicted, the respondents in the older age groups, from 41 years old to above, have more confidence in television and newspapers compare to other types of mass media. Further, there is no single respondent in these age groups (41 to >70 years old) that considered social media and various online platforms as trustworthy.
On the contrary, the younger generations media users (age group 15-30 years old) believe on social media and online platforms as the most trustworthy source on information. Although there are large number of respondents in this age group who still consider television is the most trustworthy media, but significant proportion admitted the trustworthiness of social media and online platforms as compare to different age groups. Among respondents who admitted that they have trust on new media, the highest proportions are in the age group of 21-30 years old and 31-40 years old.
In relation to the level of income, the groups of respondents who have the level of income from Rp 1.000.000 to Rp 3.000.000 (relatively low income level) see that television is the most trustworthy mass media and have more confidence with the information this medium presents.
However, respondents with medium and relatively higher level of income (Rp One of the reasons is that this medium of information allows them "to connect and contribute to ongoing conversations about news via posting comments and/or content on social networking sites and blogs". With this opportunity to provide feedback and commentary to the current affairs, reading or watching news on the Internet become more engaging activity compare to just passively watching news on television. Another reason for younger generation to seek information through the Internet and social media is because teenager prefer to "self-tailor" their news, and because they see traditional news outlets "force-fed" the stories to them, which they find boring and less interesting (Marchi, 2012, p. 252).
Teenagers see that the Internet and various social media also provide rooms for firsthand experiences and diverse perspectives (that also can be seen on the comment section), which they could actively seek if they are interested. Being exposed to many types of stories and different perspectives allow teenagers to consider their position on an issue and further develop their opinion on that particular issue (Marchi, 2012, p. 252). Nevertheless, Marchi (2012, p. 253) also acknowledge this "a la carte" news consumption among young generation raise a new concern that it could lead to the emergence of "echo chamber" in which individual only exposed themselves to information that match their own believe and strengthen their own conviction. This concern is become more significant in the pervasiveness of false information on the Internet and social media nowadays.
If we refer to the previous studies that asserted online and social media have large share for distribution fake news sites (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017;News Media Association, 2017, Masyarakat Telematika Indonesia, 2017, then the groups of these young media users have the higher risk to be exposed to false information. It also means they have higher susceptibility to read and distribute fake news, with or without realizing it. In conjunction to this possibility of high exposure to false information, the tendency of younger generation to have lack of ability to differentiate false information from the real one (as shown in the finding of the Stanford History Education Group research, 2016) make them prone to trusting unverified information without further effort to do some cross-check. In addition to this age factor, this research also shows that media users with high consumption of information through online media and social media are those who have medium to high level of income. Therefore, based on these two factors, profile of media users with tendency to consume false information are those who are relatively young in age and with moderate and high level of income.
Thus, if one were to conduct anti-fake news or anti-hoax campaign, these two factors should be taken into considerations. given that many unconfirmed sources and unverified information is flooding a number of social media platform. Giglietto et al. (2016) and Marchi (2012) concern about echo-chamber which could be a logical explanation for this finding, in which they explain individuals would give greater attention and consideration to what is familiar with them since it is easier to understand. Consumption of information are done insofar it is feeding and sustaining their views of the world or understanding of a particular issue. Thus, the information on social media would sound factual and convincing if it is in line with users' interests. The fact that many times conventional media (such as TV channels and newspapers) in Indonesia rather obviously support some particular political agendas lead to skepticism. This is where media bias is playing roles, although it does not mean it is equal to spreading false information. The high confidence to information in social media and various websites could also lead to spreading those information to closer networks, even sharing it publicly. This is part of the cycle in circulation of false information.
Therefore, it is important to recognize that if the younger generations' dependency on social media for their news consumption, and confidence to the truth-value of the information on this platform increasing, then, it is increasingly consequential to provide literacy to these younger generations to differentiate the fake news from the real one. As Stanford History Education Group (2016) noted, the fluency of the younger generation in using social media is not necessarily meant that they also easily assess credibility of information.
Thus, the younger age groups are the media users who have the highest tendency to consume fake news. This situation leads to the urgency to provide digital literacy to this group to help them possess more ability to recognize the information worth considering and worth believing.

CONCLUSION
This study finds that the proliferations of fake news are relate with the complex transformation of media ecology that brought about by the affordance of digital technology and various internet applications, particularly social media. The shifting practices have taken place in both production and distribution side of information as well as in consumption side of the information. This research observes a number of previous researches that investigate the tendencies of media users in consuming and distributing fake news, where the factors such as age and personal beliefs are some determinant in consuming fake news. This research, then, aims to examine the ways in which age and level of income were determining tendency to consume fake news.
The research result shows that based on the pattern of media consumption, the media users in the age group of 15-30 years old have the higher risk to be exposed to fake news. It also means that this age group was the media users with tendency to consume (and most likely to distribute) fake news. Meanwhile, based on the perception of media trustworthiness, this research also finds the younger group of media users, particularly the age group of 15-20 years old, was the age group who has tendency to believe on fake news. The result of this research, therefore, provides important information regarding who are the media users that should be targeted for literacy program to reduce, or even to eliminate, the distribution of fake news in public space.