Malaysian Susceptibility towards Online Fake News during Covid-19

Chan, Wan Yee (2022) Malaysian Susceptibility towards Online Fake News during Covid-19. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

With the development of the internet and technology, information is changing with each passing day, and the amount of information on the Internet is also increasing. The news norms have been seriously challenged with the rise of social media and digital media, fake news has once again become a powerful force. Covid-19 has begun to spread in Malaysia from April 2020, since people are not familiar with this new type of infectious virus, all kinds of unproven fake news also start circulating on the Internet and most of the people are more likely to be affected by all these fake news and information because they have no knowledge of this infectious disease. This research aims to investigate the susceptibility of Malaysians towards online fake news during COVID-19 and focuses on Malaysians ability to identify fake news related to COVID-19 and how the identification of Covid-19 fake news is influenced by age and education. The research utilizes the Social Learning Theory as the theoretical framework for this study to understand the learning process of an individual and understand the way social media users interact with news, messages, and sources on social media. Quantitative data analysis has been used in this research, the responses of 120 social media users aged between 15 - 60 years were collected through social media platforms. The researcher draws some meaningful conclusions from the analysis and interpretation of the data. According to the analysis, it shows that people have very low susceptibility towards online fake news. People with higher educational backgrounds are better at spotting fake news.