University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Fake it till you break it?! Impact of fake news on implicit brand attitudes of social media users

Bahadur, F.K. (2020) Fake it till you break it?! Impact of fake news on implicit brand attitudes of social media users.

[img] PDF
1MB
Abstract:This research tests whether fake news influences the implicit brand attitude of consumers, regardless of their awareness that the news is fake. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to measure the implicit brand preference of participants twice. After the first IAT, participants (N = 267) were exposed to fake news about a brand. Directly after that, the second IAT took place. The differences in the tests could be attributed to fake news. The data were analysed with the repeated-measure ANOVA. The results show that fake news has a weak negative effect on the brand attitude. One explanation might come from the Limited Capacity Model of Message Processing and the Prominence-Interpretation Theory of Web Credibility. These theories explain that people do not invest their full capacities in processing online information. The gender of consumers influences the relation. Fake news has only a significant effect on the implicit brand attitude of women. Disturbingly enough, fake news seems to affect the implicit brand attitude of those who realise that they were exposed to fake news. The value of this research is that it contributes to the literature on how fake news affects brands and the implicit attitude of customers towards brands.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:70 social sciences in general, 83 economics, 85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/81352
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page