2024
By Lina Buttgereit, Michael Hameleers, Damian Trilling, Katjana Gattermann, and Andreas Schuck
Despite analyses suggesting that mis- and disinformation make up only a small share of citizens’ daily news diets, the perceived misinformation exposure and worries from audiences remains high. We explore to what extent news users employ a more encompassing definition of misinformation compared to the academic literature, following recent evidence suggesting that misinformation discourse, individual biases, and disagreement on the identification of misinformation could affect misinformation perceptions. Using an ESM study (N = 1000), we employ an audience-centered approach to map organic perceived misinformation encounters and motivations for perceived misinformation encounters. In doing so, we explore the alignment between perceived misinformation exposure and existing academic approaches.