Luís DE AMORIM, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil
Luisa MASSARANI, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil
Thierry BACCINO, Université Paris 8, France
The desirable democratization and easy access to information also pose a challenge: the increase and greater speed in the circulation of fake news. This paper studies the reception of health news, the importance given to the name of the site responsible for publishing the text and the motivations for sharing. We used a mixed methodology, with an eye tracker and a questionnaire, in an experiment with 23 participants. They read four different texts, two from traditional news media, with characteristics of credibility, and two from little-known sources, which had characteristics of fake news. The analysis of 24,098 eye fixations and the answers to the questionnaires show the little importance given by the participants to the name of the source responsible for the publication and, also, the little influence of this information in the decision to share the texts. Our data indicate that fake news would be shared due to subjective issues linked mainly to the theme of the text, without concern for its credibility.