Guarding against deception through news literacy interventions: Impact of issue involvement and participation on young French adults’ fake news vulnerability

Abstract

In the so-called post-truth age and the rise of social media, news circulates widely and quickly, leading to information overload. In this context, individuals experiencing high issue involvement tend to engage more with information. Literature has recently focused on news literacy interventions to protect people from fake news. However, few have addressed these initiatives’ immediate and differential effects simultaneously on young adults’ vulnerability to deception. Through three experiments involving undergraduate university students in France, we demonstrate that intervention-based educational methods can mitigate the impact of issue involvement on belief in fake news. Yet, they do not enable individuals to protect themselves in the long run and may even prove counterproductive by triggering information overload. Our study contributes to the research investigating preventive practices to help users arm themselves against fake news in media communication, social media, and social marketing.