Exploring Social Media’s Fascination with Scholarly Research on Fake News: Insights from 500 Viral Studies

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-614-2_2How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Fake News; Scholarly Communication; Altmetrics; Social Media; Research Dissemination; Misinformation

Abstract

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the dissemination patterns and societal impact of the 500 most-discussed research articles on “fake news”. By examining Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) data, year-wise distribution, and citation metrics, we document a profound shift in scholarly communication from traditional, reader-based metrics to a dynamic, social media-dominated landscape. The findings reveal the meteoric rise of X (formerly Twitter) as the central hub for public discussion, alongside the emergence of new platforms like Bluesky, while traditional academic readers (e.g., Mendeley) remain significant for literature. Analysis of influential fields shows that while Psychology, Biomedical, and Health Sciences are the most productive, research from Information and Computing Sciences garners the highest median public attention per article, highlighting a societal demand for technological solutions. A small group of authors from elite Anglo-American institutions leads the field in both output and impact, and their work is predominantly published in high-prestige journals such as Nature and Science. Crucially, a correlation analysis reveals a statistically insignificant, near-zero relationship between an article’s citation count and its AAS (r = 0.066, p = 0.141). This decoupling indicates that scholarly impact and public engagement are distinct, non-overlapping spheres. The study concludes that the fight against misinformation is being waged on two separate fronts: one within the academic community, measured by citations, and another in the public sphere, driven by social media. This necessitates a strategic approach from researchers seeking societal impact, who must actively engage with public dissemination channels beyond traditional academic publishing.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Bwsrang Basumatary
AU  - Manoj Kumar Verma
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/27
TI  - Exploring Social Media’s Fascination with Scholarly Research on Fake News: Insights from 500 Viral Studies
BT  - Proceedings of the International conference on Marching beyond the Libraries: Talent, Technology, and Transformation (ICMBL 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 3
EP  - 15
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-614-2_2
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-614-2_2
ID  - Basumatary2026
ER  -