The aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential Elections and the Brexit campaign in Europe have opened the floor to heated debates about fake news and the dangers that these phenomena pose to elections and to democracy, in general. Despite a growing body of scholarly literature on fake news and its close relatives misinformation, disinformation or, more encompassing, communication and information disorders, few studies have so far attempted to empirically account for the effects that fake news might have, especially with respect to what communication scholars call the third person effect. This study aims to provide empirical evidence for the third person effect in the case of people’s self-perceived ability to detect fake news and of their perception of others’ ability to detect it. Based on a survey run in August 2018 and comprising a national, diverse sample of Romanian adults ( N = 813), this research reveals that there is a significant third person effect regarding people’s self-reported ability to spot fake news and that this effect is stronger when people compare their fake news detection literacy to that of distant others than to that close others. Furthermore, this study shows that the most important predictors of third person effect related to fake news detection are education, income, interest in politics, Facebook dependency and confirmation bias, with age being a non-significant predictor.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by the circulation of an unprecedented amount of “polluted” information, especially in the social media environment, among which are false narratives and conspiracy theories about both the pandemic and vaccination against COVID-19. The effects of such questionable information primarily concern the lack of compliance with restrictive measures and a negative attitude towards vaccination campaigns, as well as more complex social effects, such as street protests or distrust in governments and authorities in general. Even though there is a lot of scholarly attention given to these narratives in many countries, research about the profile of people who are more prone to believe or spread them is rather scarce. In this context, we investigate the role of age, compared with other socio-demographic factors (such as education and religiosity), as well as the role of the media (the frequency of news consumption, the perceived usefulness of social media, and the perceived incidence of fake information about the virus in the media) and the critical thinking disposition of people who tend to believe such misleading narratives. To address these issues, we conducted a national survey (N = 945) in April 2021 in Romania. Using a hierarchical OLS regression model, we found that people who perceive higher incidence of fake news (ß = 0.33, p < 0.001), find social media platforms more useful (ß = 0.13, p < 0.001), have lower education (ß = −0.17, p < 0.001), and have higher levels of religiosity (ß = 0.08, p < 0.05) are more prone to believe COVID-19-related misleading narratives. At the same time, the frequency of news consumption (regardless of the type of media), critical thinking disposition, and age do not play a significant role in the profile of the believer in conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic. Somewhat surprisingly, age does not play a role in predicting belief in conspiracy theories, even though there are studies that suggest that older people are more prone to believe conspiracy narratives. As far as media is concerned, the frequency of news media consumption does not significantly differ for believers and non-believers. We discuss these results within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article explores the representation of motherhood and womanhood in the Romanian communist magazine Femeia and the extent to which this publication was a mere vehicle of the official pronatalist policy of Ceausescu's regime. Two phases have been identified, overlapping both the evolution of the magazine itself and the Party's ideology. The author metaphorically designates them as follows: (a) 1966-1971/1972, Almost the 'Eternal Feminine' and (b) 1973/1979. Drawing on discourse analysis and social history, the article examines each of these.

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Higher levels of trust in credible sources of information in times of crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic increase public compliance with official recommendations, minimizing health risks and helping authorities manage the crisis. Based on a national survey (N=1160), this article explores (a) actual levels of trust in various sources of information (government websites, legacy media, social media, and interpersonal communication) during the pandemic and (b) a number of predictors of such trust. Results show that during the period studied government websites were the most trusted source of information. Trust in an information source is correlated with consumption of COVID-19–related news from that specific source, media fact-checking, and self-perception about the incidence of COVID-19–related fake news. Only income and age are significant trust predictors, and only with respect to specific source types.