A Survey of Fake News: Fundamental Theories, Detection Methods, and Opportunities
It addresses the problem of fake news erosion to democracy and public trust for researchers and practitioners, but is incremental as a survey.
This survey reviews fake news detection methods from four perspectives—false knowledge, writing style, propagation patterns, and source credibility—and identifies fundamental theories to encourage interdisciplinary research.
The explosive growth in fake news and its erosion to democracy, justice, and public trust has increased the demand for fake news detection and intervention. This survey reviews and evaluates methods that can detect fake news from four perspectives: (1) the false knowledge it carries, (2) its writing style, (3) its propagation patterns, and (4) the credibility of its source. The survey also highlights some potential research tasks based on the review. In particular, we identify and detail related fundamental theories across various disciplines to encourage interdisciplinary research on fake news. We hope this survey can facilitate collaborative efforts among experts in computer and information sciences, social sciences, political science, and journalism to research fake news, where such efforts can lead to fake news detection that is not only efficient but more importantly, explainable.