This study is one of the largest analyses to date on how fake news spread on Twitter both during and after the 2016 U.S election campaign.

This report explores the challenge of teaching young people to separate fact from fiction in an age of online news manipulation. It also provides a detailed overview of recent research into news consumption trends in Australia and abroad, as well as the proliferation of misinformation in the digital realm.

In Australia, we see a rapid rate of change towards digital and mobile news. For the first time, Australians’ use of online news has surpassed traditional offline news sources. Interestingly, the majority of Australians still see television news services as the most trusted source of news.

This report is an ethnographic account drawn directly from Dr. Francesca Tripodi’s research within upper-middle class conservative Christian communities in Virginia in 2017. Tripodi uses Christian practices of Biblical interpretation as a lens for understanding the relationship between so-called 'fake news' sources and contemporary conservative political thought.

The current discourse about the diminishing role of, trust in, and respect for facts, data, and analysis is often hamstrung by the use of conflicting language and unclear or undefined terms. Without a common language with which to discuss the problem, which we are calling Truth Decay, the search for solutions becomes more difficult.