Analyzing Aspects of Critical Thinking Coupled with Technology for Fake News Identification

Fake news is one of the biggest issues that mankind faces due to its sheer negative impact. The widespread use of smartphones and social media sites has led to an unprecedented spread of unverified news. Without a means to assist people to discern between true and fake news, they are vulnerable to believe false information and spread rumors, hence contributing to the problem further. This paper focuses on the potential value of using critical thinking to identify fake news. A systematic literature review is performed to investigate criteria as well as enablers to assist in identifying fake news. According to the findings, criteria for identifying fake news include aspects related to problem discovery and problem solving. Secondly, the study uncovers twelve enablers to assist when using critical thinking to identify fake news. These include aspects such as logical reasoning and argument evaluation. Future work plans entail the use of novel methodologies to rank the enablers and criteria associated with critical thinking based on their relative importance.