Table 4.
Socio-demographic profiles of the respondents (N = 869).
| Demographic variables | Categories | N | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | 350 | 40.3 |
| Female | 519 | 59.7 | |
| Status | Working | 150 | 17.3 |
| Students | 700 | 80.6 | |
| Others | 19 | 2.2 | |
| Daily Access to Online News Portals (Hours) | <1 | 368 | 42.3 |
| 1–5 | 382 | 44.0 | |
| >5 | 119 | 13.7 | |
| Daily Access to Social Media (Hours) | <1 | 61 | 7.0 |
| 1–5 | 399 | 45.9 | |
| >5 | 409 | 47.1 | |
| Daily use of mobile phone (Hours) | <1 | 21 | 2.4 |
| 1–5 | 237 | 27.3 | |
| >5 | 611 | 70.3 | |
| Main source of information | Social media | 623 | 71.7 |
| Digital news | 185 | 21.3 | |
| Traditional (printed) | 8 | .9 | |
| Traditional (Radio, TV) | 19 | 2.2 | |
| Family/friends | 34 | 3.9 | |
| Frequency of sharing news (real/fake) | Never | 101 | 11.6 |
| Seldom | 482 | 55.5 | |
| Occasionally | 206 | 23.7 | |
| Frequently | 80 | 9.2 | |
| Definition of fake news? | Yes | 772 | 88.8 |
| No | 6 | 0.7 | |
| Unsure | 91 | 10.5 | |
| Does it matter to be reading real news? | Yes | 770 | 88.6 |
| No | 40 | 4.6 | |
| Don't care | 59 | 6.8 | |
| Can identify fake news while reading? | Yes | 337 | 38.8 |
| No | 102 | 11.7 | |
| Unsure | 430 | 49.5 | |
| Action taken on suspicious news | Ignore | 283 | 32.6 |
| Share/Forward immediately | 19 | 2.2 | |
| Fact checking website | 245 | 28.2 | |
| Google verification | 209 | 24.1 | |
| Family/friends verification | 112 | 12.9 | |
| Aware of fact checking website in Malaysia? | Yes | 364 | 41.9 |
| No | 505 | 58.1 |