Mid Sweden University

The purpose of this study is to investigate, through focus groups, whether people aged 50-80 take a source-critical approach to online information. The study is limited and relates only to Facebook. In addition, the perceived truth value of re-shared information will also be investigated and compared to the perceived truth value in direct contact with the published information. The following questions will be the focus of the study;

- How are older people affected by disinformation on Facebook?

- What effect does re-shared disinformation on Facebook have on older people?

- To what extent do older people have a source-critical approach on Facebook?

- Does the source-critical approach among older people differ regarding digitally published information compared to analogically published information?

Title: Digital citizenship: A qualitative study of how elders relate to source criticism on Facebook

Author: Rasmus Wickström Jäder

Course, term and year: Scientific essay, sixth term, 2024.

Number of words: 8523

Methodolgy and material: The study is mainly based on three focus groups between four and six people aged 50–80 will participate in each, thus providing a response base of 12–18 people. The selection was done through a snowball sampling. Each focus group was conducted digitally, via Messenger, and moderated by the writer who continuously used an interview guide to support the valid approach. All conversations were recorded and transcribed to summarize the discussions as accurately as possible, which further aided in summarizing and analyzing the data. As a complement to the focus groups, a semiotic image analysis was also carried out.

Main result: The results show that older people are not necessarily less critical of sources than the younger generation. The majority of respondents were highly critical of the sharing of posts on Facebook and did not seem to be significantly affected by disinformation on the platform. Furthermore, some of the respondents highlighted the importance of analogue media in the question of taking a source-critical approach to online news and its major place in everyday media consumption.