Survey analisis

One of the tools chosen by the BrokenNews team to support the achievement of the project's objectives is an online questionnaire focused on the topics of FakeNews and Hate Speech. It has been disseminated through social channels, and, given the transnational character of the project, written in both Italian and English. 

Through this survey, the team gathered information and opinions of more than 140 participants about the issues addressed, involving the beneficiaries of the project themselves, the so-called digital citizens, especially from 16 to 30 years old.

The questionnaire’s format was structured on the basis of the interviews carried out during our second meeting, held the 15th of February in Trieste. Users were asked to answer both sections concerning the level of perception and knowledge about the core issues of the analysis. The first’s focused on the frequency and use habits of the information media. The second, instead, contains the small quiz "true or false?" about the verification of fake news based on news recently circulated on the web.

The analysis of collected data showed these results:

As for the first section, almost all users have shown that they are aware about Fake News phenomenon and they know how to define it and talk about it, with no notable differences due to the age or educational qualifications. 

The same cannot be said for the Hate Speech phenomenon, almost a quarter of respondents affirmed they are not familiar with this concept, although its definition can be intuitive. 

Specifically, among young people <21 (not yet high school graduated) less than half have ever heard about it, despite the fact that almost all of them have said that they often encounter hate and intolerance comments, especially on social networks, which is the most used information medium by this age group.

Among young people aged between 21 and 30, who have completed at least their first cycle of studies (high school diploma), only someone is unaware of the phenomenon and, as in the previous case, comments of hate and intolerance are encountered more frequently on social networks but also on television, the information media most used by this age group.

In the group of over-30s, the majority of whom have a bachelor's degree or higher education qualification, most are equally informed about both phenomena. 

Moreover, there is a greater frequency of access to information channels than younger users, in particular newspapers (printed and/or online) are the most widely used means. 

Again, comments of hate and intolerance are encountered more often on social networks and on the web in general.

Overall, the results can be summarized with the following graphs.

As for the second section, although more than most respondents were able to discern the real news from the fake one, the majority of them declared that they had not verified the sources of the proposed news before giving their answer.

Specifically, in the age group <21 this situation occurred for more than half of the users, while for the older age groups, more than 2/3 of them did not look for the sources, among them we find those who could not identify the fake news.

Overall, the results can be summarized with the following graphs.

In conclusion, from the collected data, we can say that, as the simple common sense without any supportive verification is often not enough to identify fake news, so also having a more or less in-depth knowledge of some of the phenomena that make digital world toxic and dangerous, such as bad information and hate speech, is not enough to identify them and, consequently, to fight them without a background of awareness and education to active citizenship, that is what the BrokenNews project aims to do.