More Than a Click: Exploring College Students' Decision-Making Processes in Online News Sharing

Fake news can be disseminated on social media platforms due to users' inability to distinguish it from true news as well as the nature of heuristic-driven online sharing. We use in-depth semi-structured interviews with 20 college student social media users to help build a picture of their sharing processes that can help platform designers and operators better combat fake news dissemination. Participants reflected on specific recently shared news pieces, including how the stories attracted attention, why they shared them, and their behavior after sharing. Interview results revealed different cognitive processes people engaged: before, during and after sharing. Before sharing, participants assessed the news content and evaluated the social value of sharing the particular news piece. During sharing, the audience of the post was selected. After sharing, users examined the feedback from others and revisited previous sharing decisions. The study highlights that decisions about news sharing involve a myriad of different considerations throughout different cognitive stages. Based on these findings, we discuss design implications for combating the sharing of fake news.