Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Misinformation

Source: Brennen, J. Scott, Felix Simon, Philip N. Howard, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. "Types, Sources and Claims of COVID-19 Misinformation," Reuters Institute, 07 April 2020
Topic: Disinformation
Reference year: 2020
Geographical area: European Union
Method: Survey
Link to original document: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk
The chart shows that high-level politicians, celebrities, or other prominent public figures produced or spread only 20% of the misinformation in Reuters Institute's sample, but that misinformation attracted a large majority of all social media engagements in the sample. The first bar shows the share of content that was produced or shared by prominent persons in the whole sample (N=225). The second bar shows the per cent of total social media engagements of content from prominent persons out of the sub-sample of social media posts with available engagement data (N=145).