Loneliness, individual narcissism and fake news. The challenge of communication with vulnerable audiences.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic exacerbated the sharing of fake news and its negative impact on society for two reasons:1.Protective measures contributed to an increase of loneliness in some sections of society. 2.These lonely audiences became more psychologically vulnerable and then consumed and spread fake news about COVID-19. In two studies (N = 465), we tested a model involving a mediated mechanism whereby loneliness indirectly influences intentions to share fake news. Loneliness was a strong predictor of sharing untruthful content and narcissism was a mediator of this relationship but negatively related to loneliness. Gen Z demonstrated high propensity to share dubious content and we attribute this to the political views of this audience and their need to control the epistemic environment. For public relations practitioners, the findings are offered to help better understand the characteristics of this new vulnerable audience. At the theoretical level, we propose that the extent of change in the audience we have detected may have implications for the assumptions that underpin Grunig’s Situational Theory of Publics. Elaborations to this theory could be considered that attend to the divided and sometimes vulnerable audiences who are often dismissive of mainstream news and information sources.