Mapping Recent Development in Scholarship on Fake News and Misinformation, 2008 to 2017: Disciplinary Contribution, Topics, and Impact

Abstract

This review article examines 142 journal articles on fake news and misinformation published between 2008 and 2017 and the knowledge generated on the topic. Although communication scholars and psychologists contributed almost half of all the articles on the topic of fake news and misinformation in the past 10 years, the wide variety of journals from various disciplines publishing the topic shows that it has captured interest from the scholarly community in general. Male scholars outnumbered female scholars in both productivity and citations on the topic, but there are variations by fields. There are very few scholars who have produced a large body of work on the topic yet. Effects of fake news/misinformation is the most common topic found in journal articles. A research agenda by the different roles in the production, spreading, and using fake news/misinformation is suggested.