The Fake News Phenomenon in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Perception of Romanian Students
The Fake News Phenomenon in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Perception of Romanian Students

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the impact of the fake news phenomenon in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. More precisely, it shows what negative effects they can have on a society, how the evolution of new technologies has simplified the dissemination of fake news, what measures the European Union has adopted against them, and how important media literacy is in the context of increasing audience resilience. Specialized literature suggests that rural residents, young people, the elderly, people with disabilities, and the less educated are the public types most vulnerable to disinformation. With this in mind, the author chose young students as his study group to investigate whether they are indeed vulnerable to disinformation or not. Moreover, the author chose two different categories of students to investigate whether the following profile (real or human) influences their perception of the fake news phenomenon. The basis of this study was an interview guide that was applied to a number of 16students (8 real profile students and 8 human profile students). The results of this study showed that young students know the motivations behind the spread of fake news and disinformation, they know that social media have amplified the spread of these two phenomena during the pandemic, and they are aware of the negative effects they have produced at the level of society as well as individually. Also, young students do not know the concept of „side reading”, the vast majority check information only after reading it, but use other techniques to check information.

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