ABSTRACT
Verifying the validity of a social media message is challenging as the affordances of the technology allow people to rapidly spread information to large groups of people. A potential problem is that social media users are unduly influenced by misinformation and disinformation. The focus of this chapter is about the phenomenon of online disinformation. This chapter conceptualizes that when a piece of disinformation is presented to users in social media (e.g., in the form of fake news), it marks a persuasion act – to successfully persuade the user to believe in the content, to agree with the presented view, and to spread it. From this perspective, the chapter reviews persuasion theories and models to explain what makes one vulnerable to disinformation. By presenting a modified persuasion knowledge model, the chapter illustrates persuasion episodes in the context of online disinformation and identifies research gaps for future exploration.
