＞ QUESTIONNAIRE

 

Questionnaire

We conducted a survey on fake news to 51 people, including students in our school campus. 　The survey was conducted using Google Surveys and consisted of three questions. 　The results are shown below.

Question1
1) "Please choose three topics of interest from the following.

From among the eight topics, all 51 students were asked to choose three topics of interest. The topic was "new coronaviruses". The results are shown in the graph.

Some of these topics we came up with on our own, while others we modified from actual online news titles. In other words, the following topics are "fake news".

C "Amazing health benefits of ginger, including 90% reduction in infection rate"
F "Corona-positive rate in pets is about 80% if the owner is infected"
H "Additional vaccinations after the third dose increase the risk of adverse reactions."

< About the Three Fake News >
C "Amazing health benefits of ginger such as 90% reduction in infection rate (31.4%)"
This is a claim about the benefits of ginger that are not actually recognized. About 30% of those who chose this theme may have been impressed by the words "90% reduction in infection rate. It is also a relatively familiar topic that can be tested in practice.

F: "The corona-positive rate in pets is about 80% (37.3%) if the owner is infected"
If you have pets, you might want to keep an eye on this topic. In other words, the percentage of people who own pets will be 26.6% in 2021. This suggests that even people who do not own pets are interested in this topic.

H: "Additional vaccinations after the third dose, increased risk of adverse reactions (58.8%)"
Of the eight topics, this topic generated the most interest. This can be attributed to the fact that now that about 80% of the respondents have completed their second vaccination, the third additional vaccination is the most relevant and topical. Also, if the content raises concerns such as "increased risk of adverse reactions," it will attract more attention and interest.

On the other hand, D "Abeno masks are surprisingly popular! distributed to those who wish" was the least popular, accounting for only 21.6% of the total.
The average number of respondents who were "interested" in each of the three fake news items was 21.7, accounting for 42.5% of the total. On the other hand, the average number of respondents who said they were "interested" in the real news was 17.6, or 34.5% of the total. From this survey, we found that 8% more people are interested in fake news than in real news.

Question2
How much do you know about fake news?

About 90% of the respondents knew about fake news, and none of them had ever heard of the term "fake news". In fact, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) published an article titled "Unreliable Information such as Hoaxes and Fake News in the Internet Age," calling for people to be careful about the spread of false information by the media, in addition to hoax information intentionally spread to confuse people. It warns people to be careful about the dissemination of false information by the media, in addition to false information that is deliberately spread to confuse people. This indicates that the spread of social networking sites has greatly increased the awareness of fake news.

Question3
Have you ever had an experience of having an untrue article spread or shared on SNS?

About 30% of respondents answered "Yes. The spread or sharing of inaccurate information can lead to the spread of fake news. For example, let's say that 1,000 people read fake news. If those 294 people spread or share the news to 10 people through social networking sites, it will reach 2,940 people ....... This is especially true if influencers and other influential people are added to the mix. When you think about it, "30%" is not a small number, but a dangerous number.

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