Document Type

Capstone Project

Publication Date

2020

Publisher

Brookings Mountain West

Publisher Location

Las Vegas, Nevada

First page number:

1

Last page number:

28

Abstract

While living in the age of information, an inherent drawback to such high exposure to content lends itself to the precarious rise of misinformation. Whether it is called “alternative facts,” “fake news,” or just incorrect information, because of its pervasiveness in nearly every political and policy discussion, the spread of misinformation is seen as one of the greatest challenges to overcome in the 21st century. As new technologies emerge, a major piece of both content creation and the perpetuation of misinformation are social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. As news events emerge, whether be a pandemic, a mass shooting, or an election campaign, it is difficult to divulge the facts from fiction when so many different “facts” appear. This study looks at 14,545,945 tweets generated in the wake of the 1 October mass shooting and its second anniversary to identify how much of the public response is fogged by information pollution, to identify what kind of misinformation is spread and how it spreads on Twitter and news coverage.

Keywords

Misinformation; Disinformation; Twitter; Social media; 1 October; Las Vegas

Disciplines

Public Policy | Science and Technology Studies | Social Media

File Format

pdf

File Size

1.963 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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