Table 2. Qualitative data themes.

Those who incorrectly accepted the fake news content	Theme
I have personal experience of this	Personal Experience
My kids are in this position so I completely get this
Good argument, it uses a graph and data from a source	Visuals/Data/Graphs
The graph shows it all
This calls out poor practice and makes sense	A ‘Hidden’ Problem
Horrible problem, glad it was pointed out
The commenter on the post has the same thoughts as me	Fits Existing Beliefs
Agree, makes good points
Those who correctly rejected the fake news content	Theme
Emotive language, subtitle is designed to create a reaction	Emotive Language
There is emotive/condescending language in the blurb
Fearmongering article with no data	No Supporting Data
No data/facts to back up the information
The source is not an official scientific, or governmental source	Source Concerns
It doesn’t look official/look like it is from a trustworthy source
Comes across as more of a rant	Unprofessional Tone
From an opinion page, talking in the first person
The graph looks bad	Poor Graphs/Visuals
The data is not presented well
There is proof that we are causing global warming	Appeals To Evidence
Climate change is real

Shows the general themes that emerged from the text responses to the question which appeared at the end of the list for each news item ‘Please briefly describe the reason(s) for your answers’. Here we present themes for the fake news items only.