1. INTRODUCTION

In the past, people could receive news via radio, television, newspaper, magazines, and acquaintances (in person); whilst today, social media play a significant role for many people in terms of local, national, and international news (Oltmann et al., 2018). While social media have helped the speed and spread of news dissemination and have facilitated people’s contribution to content, this has also contributed to the fake news phenomenon. Because of the convenient access to different topics in the virtual world, the amount of fake news and misinformation has increased. People tend to accept information that is supportive of their feelings or personal beliefs. This is related to the construction of “filter bubbles” by social media, which means social media with their recommendation and personalization algorithms make people see information that targets their established interests, and therefore people no longer encounter a balanced and healthy information diet (Bruns, 2019b). Filter bubbles mean that users can avoid facing alternative views and reinforce their preconceptions (Rose-Wiles, 2018). Some scholars such as Bruns (2019a) have disputed the concept of filter bubbles; nevertheless, it is vitally important for people to be able to determine the right information.

Despite the long history of fake news, for a few reasons it has attracted more scholarly attention recently. It is now easy to set up websites and publish content and earn money through advertising. Moreover, social media are suitable platforms for fake news dissemination, and the use of social media has seen a dramatic rise (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). According to Digital 2022 (Kemp, 2022), Facebook has 2.91 billion users. In Iran, 33.4 million users utilize social media, even though many social media platforms are banned and filtered by the government.

Young adults are an important part of any society and it is important that they are well-informed but also have critical thinking skills for evaluating information. Young adults’ interest in news can have an impact on the economics and existence of news organizations and on the quality of journalism (Craft et al., 2016). Recent research (e.g., Esmaeli et al., 2019) has raised concern about Iranian young adults’ information literacy with regard to news consumption and fake news. Information literacy is a “set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information” (Shields, 2005, p. 6). However, there is not sufficient research and information available on how young adults in Iran consume news. Therefore, the aim of this study is to fill this gap and study news consumption behavior and tendencies of young adults. Fake news in this study is not limited to news that is misleading by design, i.e., the cases where false or misleading claims are deliberately presented as news (Gelfert, 2018); instead it is generously defined as news that is perceived as untrue (Kitta, 2018), and therefore it includes both deliberate disinformation and unintentional misinformation. The research answers the following questions:

2. BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW

Fake news is a global phenomenon that affects people all over the world. Here, first, a review of news consumption studies is presented to provide some context for this study, and then research related to fake news is reviewed.

3. METHODOLOGY

This research used a generic qualitative approach (Kahlke, 2014). Generic qualitative approach, also called basic qualitative or simply interpretive approach, which can stand alone as a qualitative approach (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015), is the type of research that is not guided by an explicit or established set of philosophic assumptions in the form of one of the more established qualitative approaches (e.g., phenomenology) (Kahlke, 2014, p. 39). Semi-structured interview was used as the data collection means. Participants (Table 1) were young adults in Tehran, aged 20-30 years old. This age range was chosen as we assumed people in this age range would be more aware of their society and more likely to have interest in news. We limited our participants to people who live in Tehran because of practical reasons such as accessibility to population but also because Tehran, as the capital, is the largest city and includes immigrants from all corners of the country. However, Tehran by no means represents all of Iran and results should not be generalized to the whole country. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling approach with the aim of achieving maximum variability in terms of demographic characteristics within the given age limit. They were recruited through the network of two of the authors on social media, using recruitment posts on social media in general (Telegram Messenger) and through snowball techniques, as some participants introduced others. No monetary incentive was offered for participation and the participants were ensured about the confidentiality and anonymity of their participation. Their education ranged from diploma to PhD degree, with 46.3% having a bachelor’s degree. More than two-thirds (70.7%) of them were women, 43.6% were married, 41.4% and 36.5% were employed and unemployed respectively, and 21.9% were university students. A total of 41 semi-structured interviews were conducted before the researchers felt the new interviews did not include much new information (saturation point) and stopped data collection. Interviews were conducted either face-to-face or by phone during April-June 2020, all of which were recorded and transcribed for the analysis. The appendix shows the interview questions. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used for data analysis. Quotations (translated from Persian to English by the researchers) in the results section include a fictional name, sex (F for female and M for male), and age of interviewees to provide some context.

4. RESULTS

The Internet and social media have had a big influence on news consumption. However, different age groups might have different news consumption behaviors, as their needs and interests may be different. Interviews with Tehran’s young adults showed that about half of the interviewees (19 people) did not regularly follow the news. Their reasons for not following the news included lack of interest, distrust in media, feeling distressed as a result of sad news, and lack of time. For instance, Golnaz (F, 28) said “I don’t follow the news because it makes me nervous and affects me directly and then when I am nervous, I mistreat my child.” Maryam (F, 30) stated that “I think media don’t reflect the truth and everything is selective, biased, and phony.”

However, the remaining (twenty-two) interviewees actively consumed news. They mostly followed scientific, artistic, political, and financial news. They were also interested in issues related to the environment, celebrities, technology, and culture. These choices were based on issues that they felt would have an impact on their daily life (especially politics and finance). Reading the news also helped them to escape from the pressures of life and be entertained (e.g., by reading about celebrities). They usually spent between 15 minutes and two hours per day reading news. One of the respondents (Morteza, M, 30) was an outlier as he spent around four to five hours each day following news, mostly watching news on television. Being unemployed might have contributed to the amount of time he spent on following news.

In the current study, news media were divided into two categories, traditional and modern. Traditional news sources included television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Most modern media consist of social media and websites. Choosing a medium begins with the social and psychological origins of one’s needs. As Zerba (2011) pointed out, beliefs, expectations, values, requirements, daily routines, and sociocultural factors can affect a person’s choice of news medium. Studies in the past (e.g., Marchi, 2012) have found that most young adults under 30 do not subscribe to newspapers, television, or radio channels.

The interviewees in this study were divided into three groups, those who used modern media more than conventional media, those who favored the traditional media, and those who believed that both media types should be used. One of the reasons for those (20 people) who had a tendency towards modern media was their perception of the credibility of news sources. They believed that modern sources, including Instagram and websites, are more trustworthy than conventional ones. They also mentioned that modern media are more accessible, ubiquitous, and less controlled in that users can review them and have more freedom for expressing themselves. This should be understood in the Iranian context, as official media (TV, radio, and print media) are either state-owned or strictly controlled by the Iranian government and might serve as propaganda channels for the political regime. On the other hand, advocates of traditional media (16 people) believed that television is more reliable because it is known as a trusted source and is the first news source for most people, especially less literate or illiterate ones. The rest of the interviewees maintained that both traditional and modern media should be used together since they can complement each other. They also felt the necessity to evaluate and investigate information from both kinds of media to have a better picture of the events.

5. CONCLUSION

The current study used a qualitative approach to understand the news consumption behavior of Tehran’s young adults and their attitude towards the fake news phenomenon. The paper is the first to study this topic in an extremely politicized society such as Iranian society. Of course, the findings cannot be generalized to other countries, as political and cultural situations might be different in every country. However, the findings contribute to our general understanding of news consumption among young adults and the way they deal with fake news. Some of the findings of the study are:

The findings demonstrated that about half of the participants did not follow the news due to lack of time and lack of interest; and the others consumed news related to their areas of interest. Among those who got news, modern resources (especially social media) were used to receive news due to ease of access, more freedom, and lower cost. Yet this does not mean that young adults in this study trusted modern sources completely. Some past studies also discussed the low credibility of social media (e.g., Shao et al., 2018; Shu et al., 2017). However, social media can act as a gateway to mainstream news that is considered to be more reliable (Thom, 2016).

Traditional media (especially television) was the second choice for respondents in this study. But this was different from some other countries. For instance, in Britain television was found to be the most popular platform for adults’ news consumption (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Lancaster et al., 2012; Ofcom, 2019). This difference might have something to do with the trust of people in their government and the independence of the media. Although in this study we did not ask questions concerning the political views of participants as it could be a sensitive issue, the findings indicated that there was a link between trust and political views. Those who trust some traditional media might do so partly because they support the current political establishment and their control over the media. On the other hand, those who trust social media might do so partly because social media are not controlled as much by authorities whom they do not trust.

Furthermore, our findings showed that newspapers are the least preferred medium among young adults, who perceive them as being subjective and biased. This might be because most newspapers in Iran are affiliated to political groups, and it is difficult to find newspapers that reflect independent and critical journalism. They also thought that the yellow press has low-quality content, a finding that was also noted by Zerba (2011) and Casero-Ripollés (2012). These findings are not aligned with studies such as Ofcom (2019) and Jarvis et al. (2009), which stated that journals and newspapers have better quality, accuracy, credibility, and neutrality in comparison to some other news platforms.

Due to the lower cost and fast dissemination of online news and the accessibility of social media, they have become fertile ground for the growth of false information (Shao et al., 2018). In these media, everyone is able to produce fake news. As our findings show, various reasons were mentioned by participants for the existence of fake news, including drawing audiences’ attention, distortion of news, and financial and political incentives. These findings are similar to those reported by Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) and Tandoc et al. (2018).

However, most participants in our research mentioned that detection of fake news is almost impossible. In this regard, Leeder (2019), Pennycook and Rand (2017), and Silverman and Singer-Vine (2016) noted their participants could not detect fake news, especially when that news was separated from the original context or sources (Rubin et al., 2016). It was also found that familiarity with news makes it more believable (Soltanifar et al., 2017). In fact, people are not very successful at distinguishing and assessing fake news, as they rely on the first several items of searching results while using search engines such as Google (Leeder, 2019). They also tend to choose news that supports their current views (Shu et al., 2017) and accept any ideas that they do not fully understand (Rubin et al., 2016). But this does not imply that all people act passively in terms of evaluating news, indeed. Our study showed that young adults employed certain methods to determine the accuracy of their news. These include comparing various sources, examining news content, and so forth.

Some studies, such as Soltanifar et al. (2017) and Esmaeli et al. (2019), found education as an important factor in critical evaluation of news and suggested taking advantage of information and media literacy in addition to critical thinking (Leeder, 2019; Musgrove et al., 2018). Also, some studies suggested education should start from childhood and be conducted in elementary schools (Hernández-Serrano et al., 2017; Loos et al., 2018). As we mentioned, education can be provided directly and indirectly, but owing to the education system in Iran, which is influenced by ideology and therefore is not strong in teaching critical thinking skills, private institutions and non-governmental organizations might help to provide some sort of education, especially with regard to social media. Media such as short comedy clips (e.g., Iranian “Dirin Dirin” animation clips) are usually more attractive for people and they can be used for education and culture-building purposes.

When it comes to spreading fake news, our study showed that Tehran’s young adults faced this problem cautiously and paid attention to the accuracy of the news. Overall, it seems impossible to prevent the dissemination of fake news, but it could be beneficial to implement culture-building practices and provide education; although Rampersad and Althiyabi (2020) found that in some societies age and culture are bigger factors than education in acceptance of fake news.

The future of news may be neither on television nor in the paper but on the Internet. The Internet is able to use all media (voice, video, and text) at the same time. Young adults also acquire the latest news in their field of interest online because of its efficiency, convenience, familiar feeling, and so forth. Of course, some people will still prefer television due to the large screen for some time yet (Meijer, 2007). However, according to Tehran’s young adults, in the future people will use more modern news resources than traditional ones because of the penetration of the Internet in societies. Perhaps the presentation of news will change and new formats will emerge. However, social advancement will improve the academic level of individuals, which itself causes discernment of accurate news and truth from false information. Moreover, it is predicted that along with the advancement of the technology, some algorithms and more effective methods will be developed to detect fake news and prevent its dissemination. As Clayton et al. (2020) explained, various social media platforms might employ tags to identify fake or controversial stories. Van Heekeren (2020) also stated that social networks could assist with disclosing the identity of those who create and disseminate fake news.

In the end, we should again highlight the point that young adults are a significant and considerable part of society. They rely on their mobile devices and the Internet, meaning that they may be exposed to fake news most of the time, and therefore it is essential to teach them how to detect fake news and avoid spreading it. Future studies might look at how education can help people better deal with fake news and at what age or level such education can be most effective.