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Vol.14, No.4, November 2025. ISSN: 2217-8309 eISSN: 2217-8333
TEM Journal
TECHNOLOGY, EDUCATION, MANAGEMENT, INFORMATICS Association for Information Communication Technology Education and Science |
Students’ Perception of Online Disinformation, Misinformation, and Malinformation
Borna Petrović, Lucija Belošević, Tihana Lubina
© 2025 Borna Petrović, published by UIKTEN. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Citation Information: TEM Journal. Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 3547-3558, ISSN 2217-8309, DOI: 10.18421/TEM144-60, November 2025.
Received: 17 April 2025.
Abstract:
Many users encounter a large amount of harmful information in the form of disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation when searching for information. This phenomenon is particularly significant among the student population, as students primarily satisfy information needs online. However, both everyday and academic information sources are filled with misleading content, making students’ use of such information largely dependent on their level of information literacy. This paper is based on research conducted at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek between November 2022 and January 2023 among undergraduate and graduate students of Information Sciences and English Language and Literature. The aim of this study is to assess the level of information literacy within these groups, with a particular focus on their habits of disseminating and evaluating information. The findings indicate that although mostly trustworthy analog media and academic information sources, students still spread false information and do not sufficiently evaluate the information encountered. These results should serve as a call to raise awareness among young people about the availability of information sources for research and the evaluation of retrieved information, especially for those with access to a wide range of freely available academic portals.
Keywords – Harmful online content, information behaviour, information dissemination, information evaluation. |
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