Fact-Checking Strategies Among the Slovak Population
Fact-Checking Strategies Among the Slovak Population

Author(s): Norbert Vrabec
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Media studies, Communication studies, Fake News - Disinformation
Published by: Факултет по журналистика и масова комуникация, Софийски университет „Св. Кл. Охридски”
Keywords: fact-checking; media credibility; verification strategies; misinformation; media literacy; Slovakia; information behaviour; digital competence; credibility assessment; audience research
Summary/Abstract: The article investigates how adults in Slovakia verify the reliability of media information. Although the academic literature offers many fact-checking models and approaches, little is known about how lay citizens use these methods in everyday life. To bridge this gap, researchers conducted a national survey of 1000 randomly selected respondents. Respondents were invited to ascertain which are the strategies they use in general when deciding on whether a news item is factual. The data permitted an examination not only of how frequent various veri¿cation strategies are but also how many methods one typically couples, in what such methods tend to cluster, and what types of veri¿cation pro¿les characterize the population. The results paint a rather uneven picture. Although a few respondents combine several complementary methods, for many the practice is limited to one or two more straightforward approaches, either having a look at other web sites, or searching for information on well-known blogs. There is also a signi¿cant proportion who never try to check information, which clearly presents a risk in today’s media environment where manipulated or untrue content abounds. Correlation and clustering analyses identify discrete behavioural patterns, such as an “online veri¿cation cluster” and a fairly autonomous group attentive primarily to textual features. The sample is divided into five broader segments, categorizing high-activity verifiers to inactive entities. In sum, it can be stated that the level of media literacy in Slovakia varies widely across society. A large proportion of people use rudimentary or heuristic checking methods, and these tend to be less systematic or rigorous. These results underscore the importance of tailored education programs in accordance with varying levels of verification competency in a population. Developing these skills is likely to be instrumental in boosting public resilience to misinformation and facilitating con¿dent and informed media engagement.

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