Fake news represents a threat to our society since people can face unverified and sensational information. News media can play a crucial role in disclosing and correcting misinformation. This paper argues that higher media coverage can anticipate an increase in public attention to the issue of fake news. Such relationship can be moderated by the country’s economic conditions and by the type of media system. We provide an original dataset and perform regression models for panel data on 12 countries, spanning from January 2016 to December 2022. The results indicate that the public will pay higher attention to the issue of fake news when media coverage on these topics increases; during economic turmoil the positive association between media coverage and public attention is higher; furthermore, the role of media coverage is stronger in countries with public-backed media as state sponsorship of the media strengthens their agenda-setting power.

中文翻译：

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媒体报道和公众对“假新闻”的关注：经济状况和市场导向的媒体系统的调节作用

假新闻对我们的社会构成威胁，因为人们可能会面临未经证实和耸人听闻的信息。新闻媒体可以在披露和纠正错误信息方面发挥关键作用。本文认为，更高的媒体报道可以预期公众对假新闻问题的关注会增加。这种关系可以由该国的经济状况和媒体系统的类型来调节。我们提供了一个原始数据集，并对 2016 年 1 月至 2022 年 12 月期间 12 个国家/地区的面板数据执行回归模型。结果表明，当媒体对假新闻的报道增加时，公众将更加关注假新闻问题;在经济动荡期间，媒体报道和公众关注之间的正相关度更高;此外，在拥有公共支持媒体的国家中，媒体报道的作用更强，因为国家对媒体的赞助加强了其议程设置能力。