The effectiveness of using audio-visual based media intervention for promoting social media literacy skills to curtail fake news on social media: A quasi-experimental investigation

Abstract

This study experimented the effectiveness of using audio-visual-based media intervention for promoting social media literacy skills to curb fake news. We carried out a quasi-experiment in one public university’s faculty of communication and media studies. We randomly divided participants into three groups, including the control group (N = 235), audio-visual media-based group (N = 118) and non-audio-visual media-based group (N = 117). The experimental groups were exposed to 8 weeks of training to improve their social media literacy skills to fight fake news. The study showed that participants exposed to social media literacy skills through audio-visual-based intervention reported better social media knowledge, demonstrated a better ability to spot fake news, and the inclination to share accurate news from the list of fake news, compared to the non-audio-visual based intervention group and the control group. Overall, social media literacy skills were found to be impactful in fighting fake news. We recommend relevant authorities and organisations to intensify their efforts to improve the public's social media literacy to help halt the spread of misleading information. Audio-visual-based intervention should be employed to educate social media literacy, to boost the effectiveness of programmes to combat fake news.