Exploring the Persuasiveness of Valenced Fake News : A Construal-Level Theory Perspective

Abstract

This study explores how fake news messages impact readers’ perceptions of credibility. By combining valenced framing and construal-level theory, the research examines how temporal, spatial, and mental construal dimensions can moderate the relationship between fake news and credibility. A quantitative method was adopted, applying repeated-measures ANOVA analysis. To measure framing effects, 16 negative and 16 positive fake news stories about China were selected from the fact-checking database of Snopes.com. The respondents were chosen from students in the northwestern part of Russia and Hungary, due to the proximity of these countries to China. The results indicate that valenced fake news can be more persuasive when evaluating credibility for proximal events rather than for distant ones. Additionally, negative fake news that contains concrete information is found to be more influential on perceptions of believability. The study suggests that the level of credibility is significantly affected by the interplay between the type of valenced fake news frame and how concrete and abstract information is presented in the message. Furthermore, the implications and future research directions in the field of fake news are discussed.