The grant from Penn State's Arthur W. Page Center will assist her study of how fake health news flows and competes with real news on social media.
Qian Xu, associate professor of communications, received a $3,100 grant from the Arthur W. Page Center at Pennsylvania State University State for her project, “Comparing the transmission dynamics of real news vs. fake news: A network analysis of the Zika epidemic on Twitter.”
Xu will use the funds to purchase the equipment for data processing and analysis. She will submit a book chapter on fake news to the Page Center as well as blog posts which will be published on the Page Center’s website. These will shed light on how fake health news flows and competes with real news on social media.
The findings of this project will enhance the mission of the Page Center by providing guidance to develop more effective and responsible online information dissemination strategies for health communicators.