The Determinants of Adaptation on Fake News among Malaysian during Covid-19 : a Social Psychology Approach

Yeow, Ke Shin (2021) The Determinants of Adaptation on Fake News among Malaysian during Covid-19 : a Social Psychology Approach. Masters thesis, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

In year 2020, online community (also known as “internet community” becomes a new lifestyle and norm of the human being due to the severity and social distances awareness resulting from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp become the main platforms for the public to access the news information and social interactions with friends and family. With the convenience and flexibility of the social media platform, news information spread rapidly as every internet user is allowed to share the news information to others by clicking the “share” button. In this context, issues of fake news spreading occurred and being rampant especially during the period of Movement Order Control in Malaysia as the public are relied on the social media to generate the news related COVID-19 and cognitive ability of the public to filter the news information is being influenced by high fear and unknown which caused by the severity of the COVID-19. Due to fake news information misleads the perception of the individual and possibly trigger to cause conflict or riots, therefore it is significantly to study the reasons of the internet users to believe and engage with the fake news information (adaptation on fake news). By reviewing the existing research in fake news, there is lacking empirical research to investigate the relationship between social-cultural and fake news adaptation from social psychology perspective. Therefore, this research aims to consummate the understanding of fake news adaptation by examining the social-cultural impacts (collectivism) on the fake news adaptation among Malaysians from social psychology perspectives. For the conceptual framework development, Heuristic-Systematic Model, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, and Stimulus-Organism-Response model are employed as theoretical support of the framework development. This research investigates the direct and indirect relationship between collectivism, social support, social endorsement, sense of belonging, fear of missing out, perceived credibility, issue involvement and adaptation on fake news. Moreover, this research also establishes the moderator role of issue involvement towards the relationship between perceived credibility and adaptation on fake news. To implement the research objectives, a total of 451 samples were collected through online self-administered questionnaire survey and the data is analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Based on the statistical findings generated, all the direct relationships between collectivism, social support, social endorsement, sense of belonging, fear of missing out, perceived credibility, issue involvement and adaptation on fake news are significantly supported. For indirect relationships, all the mediation relationships are significantly supported. Besides, the result also proved that the direct relationship between perceived credibility and adaptation on fake news would be stronger when there the internet users is high issue involvement with the news information. With the results generated in this research, this research contributes theoretical implications and managerial implications by proving the social cultural is impactful in the fake news adaptation of the internet users. The social-cultural impact is significantly in affecting the psychology and fake news adaptation behaviour of the individual from social psychology perspective. In the end of the research, some limitations of this research and recommendation suggested are concluded for future studies to further explore the understanding of fake news research.