Fake news flags, cognitive dissonance, and the believability of social media posts

Despite the increasing relevance of how to counter fake news on social media, there are only a few studies on the merit of fake news flags. Therefore, the main goal of this research is to investigate how fake news flags and the reputation of sources affect believability and information elaboration of news content shared online. Based on the data of an online pre-study with 118 participants, we present preliminary results and how we intend to test our research model in more detail by conducting an experimental eye-tracking study. Our initial findings suggest that fake news flags have a measurable impact on the believability of news, but only partially manage to counteract the established reputation of a trusted information source. Such results serve a broader research agenda to develop systems and user interfaces that are more effective for communicating fact-checking results and debunking fake news.